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What You Should Know About High Blood Pressure
Despite a new understanding of the largely preventable disease, deaths from the ‘silent killer’ are steadily climbing
High blood pressure is often called the “silent killer” because its first symptoms are typically serious: a heart attack or stroke. Deaths related to the disease, also called hypertension, are on the rise in the United States at a time when the scientific understanding of the condition — and the very definition of it — is changing dramatically.
Hypertension’s death rate, adjusted for age, increased by 45% from 1999 to 2017, a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) finds. And total deaths from heart disease, stroke, and diabetes — for which hypertension is a significant risk factor — are rising as the population grows and ages. Collectively, these four so-called cardiometabolic diseases make up the single leading cause of preventable death in this country.
Between 1999 and 2011, advances in diagnosis and treatment contributed to a decline in death rates for cardiometabolic diseases. But they are no longer enough to combat the rise, the researchers say in the new study — arguing that the focus must now shift more to prevention. “Our findings make it clear that we are losing ground in the battle…
