Health<\/a> and lead author of the study, said: \u201cWhile hypertension is largely a \u2018silent killer\u2019, the current approach to detecting and treating high blood pressure is not fit for purpose.<\/p>\n\u201cOur study highlights the prevalence of hypertension across demographics. This underscores the need for population-wide prevention strategies alongside targeted treatment for people at high cardiovascular risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
The researchers said \u201cthe most striking finding\u201d of the study was the high absolute number and the high proportion of people with undiagnosed hypertension. It also found only half of adults with high blood pressure treated by a GP were adequately controlled.<\/p>\n
Dr Iain Turnbull, a GP, deputy chief medical officer at Our Future Health and a clinical research fellow at Oxford Population Health, said it was not clear why 50% of patients who said they were taking blood pressure-lowering drugs had uncontrolled hypertension.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlood pressure varies considerably between people, and some people need changes in dose or two or more different medicines before it is brought under control. Other health conditions and medications can affect blood pressure, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are also practical and social factors: side effects, complicated treatment regimens and competing health or life pressures can make medicines difficult to take consistently. Weight, diet, salt intake, alcohol and physical activity can also influence blood pressure.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo a high reading can have many explanations and shouldn\u2019t be seen simply as a reflection of what an individual patient or healthcare professional has done.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are also some important caveats \u2026 we did not have prescribing records available to independently confirm medication use, and a blood pressure measurement on one day does not necessarily represent someone\u2019s usual blood pressure.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven with those caveats, I wouldn\u2019t regard 50% as a satisfactory figure. Persistently high blood pressure increases the risk of stroke and heart disease, and bringing it under control reduces that risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prof Bryan Williams, chief scientific and medical officer at the British Heart Foundation, said the study \u201cpaints a concerning picture of the scale of undetected high blood pressure in the UK, and the challenges of keeping blood pressure under control in those already receiving treatment\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBetter detection and treatment could help tens of thousands of people to avoid a preventable heart attack and stroke,\u201d he added. \u201cBut to achieve this, we will need to rethink how we identify, treat and support those at risk so that blood pressure checks and effective treatment can benefit everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Only half of people being treated by a GP for high blood pressure in England have it under…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":907268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49,48,84],"class_list":["post-907267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/907268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}