Nearly a third of American adults have high blood pressure, putting them at greater risk of stroke, heart attack, kidney failure, and other problems, says a new government study. The rising incidence of obesity and an ageing population are being blamed.
The new figures are from census data and a 1999-2000 national health and nutrition examination survey, which included 4531 adults. The study estimates that 31.3% of Americans have high blood pressure, up from 28.9% in the previous national health report from 1988-94. That means that about 65 million American adults who now have high blood pressure. (published online first on 23 August at http://hyper.ahajournals.org).
The new study shows that the proportion of the population with hypertension grew by about 8% during the 1990s. The study found a 30% increase in the total number of adults with hypertension. Four out of 10 black Americans have high blood pressure, compared with about three out of 10 Mexican Americans and white Americans.
“We hope that this new data will serve as a wake up call to physicians, other healthcare professionals, and the public,” said Dr Barbara Alving, acting director of the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. “More aggressive prevention and treatment of high blood pressure is needed.”
“The hypertension trend is not unexpected given the increase in obesity and an aging population,” she continued. “Obesity contributes to the development of hypertension, and the current epidemic of overweight and obesity in the US has set the stage for an increase in high blood pressure. We also know that high blood pressure becomes more common as people get older. At age 55, those who do not have high blood pressure have a 90% chance of developing it at some point in their lives.”
“The big message to the American public is that we need to pay attention to our lifestyle and those that are overweight need to get slimmer,” said Dr Daniel Jones, dean of the School of Medicine for the University of Mississippi Medical Center and an expert on high blood pressure. Guidelines recently issued by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's national high blood pressure programme identified a new “prehypertension” category. This category was created to alert people to their risk of developing high blood pressure so they could make lifestyle changes to help avoid developing the condition. These changes include losing excess weight, becoming physically active, limiting alcoholic beverages, and following a “heart-healthy” eating plan, including cutting back on salt and other forms of sodium.
“We sort of saw it coming,” said Jeffrey Cutler, senior scientific adviser with the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and one of the authors of the study. Dr Cutler said he expected the problem to get worse because of the growing numbers of children and teenagers who already have high blood pressure.