Greater Reductions in Blood Pressure in Hypertensive Patients Further Reduce Stroke Risk

The data reported in this study can be added to the considerable weight of prior evidence showing that greater sustained reductions of blood pressure in hypertensive patients is better for long term health. Blood pressure should be lowered more aggressively than has been the case in the past, in other words. This is old news in some respects. The medical community has already adjusted its recommendations in recent years, reducing the pressure thresholds at which blood pressure is considered harmful and a risk to future health. Raised blood pressure, hypertension, is very influential on the trajectory of age-related disease. It speeds up the development of atherosclerosis, and makes stroke and heart attack due to rupture of atherosclerotic plaques more likely. It causes a raised rate of rupture in small blood vessels, producing microbleeds that harm delicate tissues in the brain, kidney, and elsewhere. The size of these effects is large enough that forcing a reduction in blood pressure without addressing any of the underlying dysfunction that causes hypertension can still produce benefits. The better path forward, however, would be to address the causes. This approach should be easier, in sense of being more efficient, more cost-effective, and also produce more extensive benefits by reducing the impact of all of the other problems that those underlying causes produce. Damage to tissues never has just one consequence. What causes hypertension? To a first approxima...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs