High blood pressure has been identified as a major risk factor for death in Australia.
Research published today in the journal PLOS ONE reports that high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, has been the leading risk factor for cardiovascular and all-cause deaths in Australia over the past 30 years.
Experts say the findings are likely to be similar in the United States.
“This is consistent with what we already know in the United States. Hypertension, if inadequately treated, increases an individual’s risk of coronary artery disease, heart failure, kidney failure, stroke, peripheral artery disease, dementia, aortic aneurysm, and that’s just the beginning,” Dr. Parveen Garg, a cardiologist at Keck Medicine of USC in California who was not involved in the research, told Medical News Today. “Given the prevalence of hypertension, the underrecognition of the condition, the undertreatment of the condition, and the health risks it poses, we can expect similar findings in the US.”
The researchers noted that Australia lags behind other higher-income countries in treating hypertension.
They said the main risk factors include dietary factors as well as tobacco use.
US-based experts say that although the study only looked at the Australian experience, the data is useful for clinicians around the world.
To that end, more knowledge equals power. Collaborative efforts to understand risk factors, interventions, and outcomes can certainly influence approaches both in the US and globally,” Dr. Megan Kamath, a cardiologist at UCLA Health in California who was not involved in the research, told Medical News Today.
“The latest data from the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] suggest that we have considerable room for improvement in hypertension control,” she added. “Only about 1 in 4 US adults has controlled hypertension. One of the biggest problems with hypertension is that it is often silent and people don’t know they have it until they have an event. We must continue to focus efforts first on prevention, early detection, and then follow-up to make improvements in our population health efforts.”
In the United States, hypertension is considered a blood pressure reading of 130/80 mmHg or higher.
Stage 2 hypertension is considered to be 140/90 mmHg or higher.
Normal blood pressure is less than 120/80 mmHg.
Nearly half of US adults have hypertension. That’s almost 120 million people.
Only 22% have their hypertension under control. Another 45% of US adults with uncontrolled hypertension have a blood pressure reading of 140/90 mmHg or higher. That’s 37 million people.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that in 2021, hypertension was the primary or contributing cause of nearly 700,000 deaths in the United States.
“The way I would think about hypertension is that we use the term ‘primary risk factor’ and by that we mean that it is a risk factor that can result in diseases that can have even greater consequences, such as coronary heart disease. or stroke,” Dr. Manoj Kesarwani, an interventional cardiologist at UC Davis Health in California, who was not involved in the research, told Medical News Today.
Experts who spoke to Medical News Today say that controlling hypertension is a challenge not only at the individual level, but also at the population level.
At the population level, there are several other issues, including access to care and social determinants of health, that play a role in blood pressure control at that level,” Kamath said.
Adding to this challenge is the fact that most people are unaware that they can be affected by hypertension.
He was only 38 years old and did not know that he had poorly controlled hypertension. And you think, well, there was an opportunity to intervene?”
