Heart & Blood Majority of American Adults Suffer High Blood Pressure
By Ben Wasserman
Oct 14, 2008 - 2:59:21 PM
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Tuesday October 14, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) -- More
American than ever suffer high blood pressure and more Americans receive
treatment and live rather than died from hypertension, according to a new study
published in the Nov. 2008 issue of hypertension.
The percentage of people with high blood pressure
increased from 50.3 to 55.5 percent between 1994 and 2004 while the rate of
hypertension increased from 32.3 to 36.1 percent.
Paul D. Sorlie, Ph.D and colleagues, authors of the
study, from the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute attributed the
ever-increasing number of Americans with high blood pressure to the
obesity epidemic and suggested that more prevention effort needs to be invested
in preventing obesity.
High blood pressure is
believed to kill about 300,000 people in the United States each year.
It is estimated about 30 percent of American
adults suffer high blood pressure or hypertension with the highest rate in
African Americans and the lowest rate in Mexican Americans. And about 28
percent of people have pre-hypertension.
In 2003, people paid 35
million physician office visits for hypertension, which is a major risk factor
for heart disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, and kidney disease.
High blood pressure is
known by some as a silent killer and at least one third of the patients actually
are not aware of their having the condition, according to an official document
from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It is estimated that about
90 percent of middle-aged adults will develop high blood pressure in the
remainder of their lifetime.
High blood pressure for
adults is defined as a systolic blood pressure of 140 mmHg or higher, or a
diastolic blood pressure of 90 mmHg or higher while pre-hypertension is defined
as a systolic blood pressure of 120–139 mmHg or a diastolic blood pressure of
80–89 mmHg.
The overall cost of high
blood pressure is estimated at more than $60 billion.
Like many others disease,
there are something that can be done and something that cannot be done to
reduce the risk.
For prevention of high
blood pressure, the controllable risk factors include body weight, physical
activity, a healthy diet, and restricted use of alcohol, prevention of
diabetes, no use of tobacco, and use of medications.