WEDNESDAY, June 6, 2018 (HealthDay News) — Under the 2017 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) hypertension guidelines, there would be a substantial increase in the proportions of stroke survivors with hypertension and above the recommended blood pressure target, according to a study published online June 6 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Alain Lekoubou, M.D., from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, and colleagues used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys between 2003 and 2014 to estimate the prevalence and number of stroke survivors with hypertension, with recommended pharmacological treatment, and above blood pressure target according to the 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines and the seventh report of the Joint National Committee (JNC) on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure guidelines.
The researchers found that the proportion and number of stroke survivors with hypertension was 49.8 percent and 2,361,075 per the 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines versus 29.9 percent and 1,415,974 per the JNC report. Using the ACC/AHA guidelines, 56 percent, or 1,824,106 individuals, were not at target blood pressure, versus 36.3 percent, or 1,184,655 individuals, per the JNC guidelines.
“The potential to reduce mortality and recurrent stroke is immense, because more than half of all strokes are attributable to uncontrolled high blood pressure,” Lekoubou said in a statement.
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