Hypertension: Controlling the "silent killer"

Hypertension: Controlling the "silent killer"

It is almost certain that you or someone you know has high blood pressure, known medically as hypertension. An alarming one in three American adults has this disorder. If you are among them, you can take steps today to protect yourself from the damage it causes.

Years ago, doctors didn't even treat high blood pressure in older people. They thought that hypertension was a normal part of aging, along with gray hair and creaky joints. That thinking changed in 1961, when investigators from the landmark Framingham Heart Study concluded that hypertension in fact increased risk for cardiovascular disease. In the years since, physicians discovered that high blood pressure can be prevented, controlled, and even reduced in many cases. Despite this understanding, more and more people began to develop hypertension — and at younger ages. Today, 690 million people worldwide, including more than 65 million in the United States, are thought to have high blood pressure.

Part of the problem is that many people with hypertension don't even know they have it. Because hypertension has no symptoms or warning signs, yet can be so dangerous to your health and well-being, it has earned the nickname "the silent killer."

That's why it's crucial to identify the problem and get it under control sooner rather than later. To this end, a panel of government health experts is encouraging more aggressive treatment and a lower threshold for "normal" blood pressure. The result of these changes is that millions of people who were once told that their blood pressure was "normal" or "high-normal" now fall into a "prehypertension" category.

Fortunately, high blood pressure is easy to detect and treat. Sometimes people can keep blood pressure in a healthy range simply by making lifestyle changes, such as losing weight, increasing activity, and eating more healthfully. In other cases medication is necessary. Either way, reducing your blood pressure even a little bit can dramatically improve your health and life expectancy. According to research published in 1995 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, reducing diastolic blood pressure by just 2 mm Hg would result in a 6% reduction in the risk of coronary artery disease and a 15% reduction in risk of stroke and transient ischemic attacks.

This report lays out a step-by-step lifestyle program you can use to lower your blood pressure. It also covers blood pressure monitoring and medications. With the information available today, there is no need for hypertension to be a killer any longer.

Back to top

Review Date: 2007-01-01

Harvard Medical School does not endorse products or services.