Hypertension Study Urges Lower Blood Pressure Goal

Hypertension patients can significantly reduce their risk of heart attack by aiming for a blood pressure even lower than what doctors traditionally advise, a new study reports.

The five-year international study, led by the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, was conducted to help doctors determine just how low they need to go in treating patients with high blood pressure and reducing cardiovascular diseases and deaths.

Blood pressure is generally considered healthy if the systolic level--which measures the pressure of the blood flow when the heart beats--is 120 and the diastolic level--the pressure between heartbeats--is 80. In the past, doctors generally have accepted a diastolic pressure of 90 as the target for hypertensive patients. The findings suggest doctors could aim as low as 80.

During the study, patients were assigned to diastolic pressure targets of 80, 85 and 90. Investigators then followed their progress to see how many strokes, heart attacks or related deaths occurred.

Among patients whose diastolic pressure was reduced to 90, there were 84 heart attacks, while there were 64 heart attacks among those in the 85-level group and 61 in the 80-level group.

The results, if proved accurate, should encourage doctors to be even stricter in managing patients’ blood pressure, said Dr. Peter de Leeuw, a hypertension specialist at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands.

During the study, patients received felodipine and other blood pressure medications to reach their target blood pressure level.

Among diabetics, the results were even more promising--researchers said that drastically lowering their blood pressure can halve the risk of major cardiovascular trouble. The study included 1,501 patients with diabetes and found that the risk of a major cardiovascular incident was halved for those who reduced their blood pressure to 80.

Results from the study, which involved 18,790 patients ages 50-80 in 26 countries, were being presented today at the annual meeting in Amsterdam of the International Society of Hypertension. The study was funded by U.S.-Swedish pharmaceutical company Astra Merck, which produces Plendil, a drug used in the research.