Pre-hypertension: another 'pseudodisease’?

BMC Medicine

Alexandra J Lansky²  Andreas Baumbach³  Franz H Messerli¹  Pascal Meier¹ 

[1] St Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY 10019, USA;Division of Cardiology, Yale Medical School, New Haven, CT, USA;Bristol Heart Institute, Bristol, UK

关键词: Cardiovascular;    Prevention;    Pre-hypertension;    Hypertension;   

Others  :  855682
DOI  :  10.1186/1741-7015-11-211

 received in 2013-09-04, accepted in 2013-09-04,  发布年份 2013

【 摘 要 】

Hypertension is one of the most important and common cardiovascular risk factors. Defining the level at which blood pressure starts causing end-organ damage is challenging, and is not easily answered. The threshold of blood pressure defining hypertension has progressively been reduced over time, from systolic >160 mmHg to >150 mmHg, then to >140 mmHg; and now even blood pressures above 130 to 120 mmHg are labeled as 'pre-hypertension’ by some expert committees. Are interest groups creating another 'pseudodisease’ or is this trend scientifically justified? A recent meta-analysis published in BMC Medicine by Huang et al. clearly indicates that pre-hypertension (120 to 140/80 to 90 mmHg) is a significant marker of increased cardiovascular risk. This raises the question as to whether we now need to lower the threshold of 'hypertension’ (as opposed to 'pre-hypertension’) to >120/80 mmHg, redefining a significant proportion of currently healthy people as 'patients’ with an established disease. These data need to be interpreted with some caution. It is controversial whether pre-hypertension is an independent risk factor or just a risk marker and even more controversial whether treatment of pre-hypertension will lower cardiovascular risk.

Please see related research: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/11/177 webcite.

【 授权许可】

   
2013 Meier et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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