Aggressive target of 130/80 will harm those with lower CVD risk- New BP guidelines challenged

The new BP guidelines issued in November have recommended lowering of the threshold for treating hypertension to 130/80 mm Hg instead of the previous commonly accepted mark of 140/90 mm Hg. This has created furore among doctors because to meet the new targets will mean 10 million of new prescriptions and huge funds to be spent to procure medicines.Dr.Robert A. Phillips, an expert in hypertension and cardiovascular disease at Houston and his colleagues investigated the impact of new guidelines that redefine high blood pressure and is challenging the new hypertension guidelines.He is of the opinion that while patients at higher risk for cardiovascular disease benefited from the stricter guidelines, those with lower risk had more harm than benefit from the intensive treatment recommendations.The findings described in a paper titled "Impact of cardiovascular risk on the relative benefit and harm of intensive treatment of hypertension," are being published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

"While it's estimated that 107,500 deaths could be averted annually in the U.S. by implementing more aggressive treatments, it may be accompanied by other serious, adverse events," Phillips said. "This presents clinicians and patients with a dilemma, potentially trading one clinically significant condition for another."

The new rules were written by a panel of 21 scientists and health experts who reviewed more than 900 published studies. Issued by the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology and nine other professional health organizations, the new guidelines classify hypertension as a reading of 130 over 80, rather than 140 over 90. Under these new tightened rules, 46 percent of U.S. adults are now considered hypertensive, up from 32 percent.

This call for more aggressive treatment is based largely on data from the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial, or SPRINT, which was a large-scale study of more than 9,000 people, sponsored by the NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

"Classifying patients by degree of future risk might be the best way to identify who could benefit most from intensive treatment," Phillips said. "We developed a model using the 10-year cardiovascular disease risk and found that aggressive treatment of patients with a risk greater than or equal to 18.2 percent would result in more benefit than harm, while those with a risk of less than that would fare better under a standard blood pressure management approach."

These numbers are at odds with the new guidelines, which suggest treating patients with a greater than 10 percent risk.