MONDAY, Feb. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Uncontrolled hypertension
rates are on the increase among American women, and the prevalence
of this major risk factor for heart disease and stroke among
American men is still not as low as it should be, a new survey
shows.
"Blood pressure that is higher than optimal is among the leading
two or three risks for cardiovascular disease, if not the leading
one," said Majid Ezzati, an associate professor of international
health at the Harvard School of Public Health and lead author of
the report in the Feb. 12 issue of
Circulation.
About one in five American adults has "uncontrolled high blood
pressure," defined as a systolic pressure -- the higher number of
the 140/90 reading -- above 140, according to the state-by-state
survey. Data from two major ongoing studies, the National Health
and Nutrition Examination Survey and the Behavioral Risk Factor
Surveillance System, was used in the survey.
The incidence of uncontrolled high blood pressure had been
declining steadily for decades into the 1990s, the researchers
found. The decline has continued for American men, with the rate
dropping from 19 percent to 17 percent in the early 2000s. But the
incidence among American women increased from 17 percent to more
than 22 percent during that same period.
There are big state-by-state differences, with the incidence of
hypertension highest in southern states and the District of
Columbia and lowest in Northeastern and Midwestern states such as
Vermont, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Iowa and
Colorado.
"We also found that in every state in the United States, women
have higher uncontrolled hypertension prevalence rates than men
do," Ezzati said in a statement. "The difference between men and
women is as low as 4 percent and as high as 7 percent."
"We need to look nationally, but also especially focus on those
states with the highest hypertension prevalence and emphasize
interventions to do better than last decade's trends," Ezzati
said.
The persistent incidence of hypertension is "principally a
failure of our health-care delivery system," said Dr. Dan Jones,
president of the American Heart Association. "Certainly physicians
have some fault, patients have some fault, and biology plays a
role. But in our current health-care system, high blood pressure is
treated as part of a visit with a primary-care physician that may
take only five to 15 minutes. It may be one of five or six problems
that the patient has and may be the least symptomatic of those
problems, so it doesn't get the attention it should."
Even when the problem is detected and hypertension medication is
prescribed, "patients need to take the medicine on a regular basis,
and simply fail to do so," Jones said.
Measures other than drug treatment can keep blood pressure under
control, Ezzati added. "Lowering salt intake, including regulation
in packaged and prepared foods, and regular testing should both be
effective, as would, of course, more exercise and lower weight," he
said.
"We've got to make hypertension a high priority in the treatment
of patients," Jones said.
More information
The full story on high blood pressure and its control is told by
the
U.S. Library of Medicine.
