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(Circulation. 1998;97:307-308.)
© 1998 American Heart Association, Inc.

Cardiovascular News

New Rules for High Blood Pressure

Ruth SoRelle, Circulation Newswriter

In its sixth report, the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation and Treatment of High Blood Pressure had a succinct message for doctors: complacency is hurting your patients.

Studies indicate that three-fourths of people with high blood pressure do not have it controlled, said Sheldon G. Sheps, MD, emeritus professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn, and chairman of the committee.

"One quarter of people with high blood pressure are controlled," he said. "One quarter are on medication but not controlled. One half are not on medications at all," he said.

"It's important to point out that there are some signals that things are not going as well as we thought," said Dr Sheps. "Not enough Americans are controlling their high blood pressures. Related diseases are not declining as they have in the past. These things signal the need to renew our efforts to control and prevent high blood pressure."

But if the panel had a warning for doctors, it also heeded a previous call from physicians that the new report should be easy to read, straightforward, and specific as to what the committee was recommending. Dr Sheps said the committee tried to meet all these requirements while offering an aggressive new plan for the control of high blood pressure in stratified population groups with specific risk factors.

The picture for high blood pressure control was good from 1976-1991. In 1988-1991 (the period of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III, phase 1), 73% of . . . [Full Text of this Article]