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U.S. Rate of Hypertension Rises in
1990s
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Almost one in three
U.S. adults had high blood pressure at the end of the last decade,
reversing a downward trend and raising another warning flag about
Americans' health, researchers said on Tuesday.
The prevalence of high blood pressure,
which is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, rose
to 29 percent among adults, up 4 percent since the last survey
in 1988-1991 and halting the decline since 1960 in hypertension
rates.
Of the estimated 58.4 million hypertensive
U.S. adults in 1999-2000, nearly one-third were unaware of their
illness, wrote study authors Ihab Hajjar of the University of
South Carolina, Columbia, and Theodore Kotchen of the Medical
College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, based on their analysis of government
data.
The study found two out of five
hypertensive adults went untreated and more than two-thirds did
not have their condition under control with antihypertensive drugs
or other means.
The U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, which has similarly warned about the dangers of
obesity, put off until 2010 from 2000 the goal of having half
of hypertensive adults get the condition under control. Less than
one in four controlled it at the time of the earlier survey.
Those with blood pressure of 140/90
or above or those who took antihypertensive medications qualified
as hypertensive. Those who lowered their blood pressure to 130/85
or below were considered as exerting control.
"Women, older participants, and
Mexican Americans tended to have the lowest rates of control,"
said the study published this week's issue of the Journal of the
American Medical Association.
"Programs targeting hypertension
prevention to achieve the 16 percent target for hypertension prevalence
by 2010 and improving awareness and treatment are of utmost importance
for the health of the U.S. population," the authors concluded.
Reference
Source 89
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