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46% of Americans Now Have High Blood Pressure (nbcnews.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the having-hypertension dept.

"Millions more Americans will now be diagnosed with high blood pressure," reports NBC News, which describes the condition as "one of the leading killers around the world." Anyone with blood pressure higher than 130/80 will be considered to have hypertension, or high blood pressure, the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology said in releasing their new joint guidelines. "It's very clear that lower is better," said Dr. Paul Whelton of Tulane University, who chaired the committee that wrote the guidelines... 130/80 to 139/89 is now considered Stage 1 hypertension and anything 140/90 or above will be considered stage 2 hypertension...

"Rather than one in three U.S. adults having high blood pressure (32 percent) with the previous definition, the new guidelines will result in nearly half of the U.S. adult population (46 percent) having high blood pressure, or hypertension," the groups said in a joint statement... While people may be confused by the change, the heart experts said three years of reviewing the research showed that many fewer people die if high blood pressure is treated earlier. "We are comfortable with the recommendations. They are based on strong evidence," Whelton said.
Slashdot reader 140Mandak262Jamuna blames the pharmaceutical lobby, arguing that "a few years down the line, we all will be taking blood pressure medications," though Dr. Robert Carey of the University of Virginia, who helped write the guidelines, claims there will only be a 1.9% increase.

The new guidelines recommend that everyone watch their diet and exercise, and that people with stage 1 hypertension should also first try eating less salt, more vegetables, fruits, and whole grains before taking blood pressure medications.

40 of 295 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by Gojira+Shipi-Taro · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Millions more will be diagnosed now that the numbers have been adjusted to sell more prescriptions.

    --
    "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
    1. Re:Well... by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Controlling mild hypertension with prescriptions is a choice. You *can* do it with lifestyle changes.

      I did it; I dropped my blood pressure from 128/86 to 105/60, without medication, through diet and exercise. It's not that hard, but the reason I succeeded where many like me fail is that as a geek measuring, tracking and evaluating data comes naturally to me. Measure everything; weigh your food, log it, analyze the results. If you try to obtain 100% of all your required nutrients without supplementation and within a wight maintenance level of calorie intake you're automatically forced to eat healthy.

      Eating healthy and exercise in moderation will turn most borderline cases of hypertension around, but it takes some discipline.

      Why did I bother? Becuase the consequences of hypertension really really suck. It's a disease with no symptoms but horrible complications. Think of all the things you consider as part of "aging" -- physical frailty, loss of memory and in some cases thinking ability. A lot of this isn't a result of the unavoidable genetics of aging; they're the result of things like heart attacks, strokes, and vascular dementia all of which are consequences of high blood pressure.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    2. Re:Well... by MrLogic17 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Correction: mild hypertension can *sometimes* be controlled by choice. You make is sound like taking medication is for the dumb and lazy.

      Look at the studies for the affects of salt on blood pressure. Some people can drop their pressure 3 points with reduced salt - for others, it doesn't change anything. The latest studies actually say that there is *no* benefit to severe salt restriction!

      If you're fat, losing weight is always a good idea. I'm not. I'm actually borderline clinically under-weight. Losing weight would probably kill me. Nothing to be done there.

      Limiting caffeine intake is another oft recommended item. I don't drink pop, and have 1 cup of coffee a day. I'm not at risk there either.

      And adding exercise - if you're not overweight, the measurable impact of blood pressure is again minimal.

      I'm glad you could use lifestyle changes, but don't say that this works for everyone.

    3. Re: Well... by ishmaelflood · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "How about campaigning for affordable healthy food?"

      How about just buying affordable healthy food? Buy a chicken, roast it. Buy some frozen peas. Buy a cabbage. Boil them. Buy sweet potato and pumpkin. roast them(no fat).

      Which part of that is beyond the culinary abilities of a 10 year old? Which part is expensive?

    4. Re:Well... by hey! · · Score: 2

      I agree with most of what you're saying here. Notice also I qualified "hypertension": mild hypertension. And of course everyone's different. But a lot of the time people are less different than they think; they're just rationalizing their habits. People would rather think of themselves as special than as unsuccessful.

      The power of lifestyle change is greatly underestimated, because so many people find it difficult. Certainly if you can't control your borderline hypertension with lifestyle change you *should* use medications, particularly if you have other complications like diabetes. But healtheir something everyone with this kind of problem should attempt, with or without medication.

      The trouble for many people is that the impetus for change comes from dissatisfaction with themselves, and that dissatisfaction undermines their efforts. They are afraid to weigh themselves because they see weight gain (which happens even in the course of dramatic weight loss) as failure, and a sign that they're weak, bad people. I actually think you set yourself up better for success if you can accept yourself as you are now, and focus on the things you will gain.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    5. Re:Well... by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem is that too many American's let their health go to shit and then demand some kind of pill to fix the problem. High blood pressure is something that can be treated with changes to diet and exercise for the vast majority of people. Using medication should only be reserved for a very limited number of cases or for people who have particular medical conditions that make other approaches impossible.

      People like to complain about how awful the American health care system is, but I'd argue that it's easily one of the best in the world. I can't imagine many other systems that could manage to keep alive a group of people as chronically unhealthy as the Americans. That the first thought is that this is being done so that there can be more prescriptions handed out for medication shows just how unhealthy the thinking about health care in America has become. The summary even ends by stating that medication isn't recommended for people who now fall into this new category of high blood pressure, but the first thought is to reach for a pill to fix things.

    6. Re:Well... by mnemotronic · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This -- healthy working hours, vacation time, enough time off to cook healthy food and spend time with family = less stress....

      I think some Europeans figured that out a long time ago. They also take flak from Americans for being lazy & unproductive.

      We like our workforce to feel a bit desperate.

      So I guess what we need is a health care system that ensures that anyone needing to pay for medical attention needs to have a full-time job with a health plan. They also need to suspect they'll be RIFFed if they're not putting in 60+ hrs/wk. Not saying that's how it is .... it's just a plan.

      --
      The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
    7. Re:Well... by hey! · · Score: 3, Informative

      Depends on where the clams were harvested. In the US states regulate shellfishing; in my state (where the clams were harvested), shellfish beds are mapped and classified; some are entirely prohibited, others are entirely permitted, and some (where fecal-oral route pathogens in the water are a concern) require treatment in a depuration plant.

      Small amounts of bioaccumulating toxins like metals aren't any reason to avoid an occasional shellfish feast here, although you might not want to eat them every day. I might avoid shellfish altogether when visiting China with its poor environmental practices and lax health regulation enforcement.

      The biggest concern with occasional fried clam is exposure to rancid fat -- because that's something you can be continually exposed to in many places if you habitually eat fried food from not-very-good restaurants.

      I have no problem with GMO grains, but I consume grains overall in moderation because they pack a large calorie wallop for their limited nutrient payload. That makes it hard to incorporate large amount of grain (GMO or not) into a calorie limited nutrient complete diet. As for health advice, I stick to information in peer-reviewed literature review papers in high impact factor journals, plus common sense.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    8. Re:Well... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Most Americans are jealous of those who work a 40-hour week and take time off every year.

      BTW, productivity isn't that different in Europe -- Europeans tend to actually work 7-8 hours (not play on their phones), then go home and live life. A lot of time spent by Americans at "work" is spend slacking off -- but anyone who works hard, then leaves after 7 hours would be seen as not pulling the wagon enough.

    9. Re: Well... by Aighearach · · Score: 3, Informative

      Only a small percent of the people with high blood pressure actually benefit from salt reduction. In the median patient, reducing dietary salt intake does not improve health outcomes .

      This is well known, though cue 5 people claiming to be RNs to respond claiming I'm murdering people by encouraging you to look up the actual risks of salt and high blood pressure and to ask the question, "Does it say salt is bad for everybody, or only for a minority of patients?"

    10. Re:Well... by Aighearach · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yor any other bottom feeders. These concentrate the toxins in the environment and are horribly bad for you.

      This is the same moronic bullshit that uneducated fisherman think up. What part of the food chain concentrates toxins? Is it "bottom-feeders?" Is it known to science?! Is it a mystery where we can just make up any random answer and it might be true? No. No, no, no, no, and no.

      Predators are the animals that concentrate toxins. Bottom feeders only concentrate toxins in very narrow conditions, for example in a bay with large amounts of water pollution. Predators concentrate all of the environmental toxins, including ones from bottom feeders!

      So you have some idiot fisherman accusing carp of concentrating toxins, but carp eat mostly plants and insects and are very low on the food chain; they only concentrate a little bit of toxins, mostly because of their long lifespan. A trout, that eats mostly meat, is concentrating way more toxins than a carp!

      This is why fish like Red Snapper, which are bottom feeders, have less toxins than Tuna; they're both carnivores, but tuna are higher on the food chain; more of their prey are also themselves predators, whereas most of the prey of a Snapper are small herbivores.

      Most bottom feeders are omnivores, they are not very high on the food chain.

    11. Re:Well... by hey! · · Score: 2

      People have a deeply held belief that they can measure portions with their eyeballs

      That's one of actually two important misconceptions. The other is that stomach fullness is reliable measure of how much you've eaten. Your belly only has three feedback settings: feed me now, you could eat a bit more, and if you eat more you're going to get sick.

      Recent research suggests that it's the amount of time you spend eating, and the amount of chewing you do that affects perceptions of how much you've eaten. I've confirmed this myself. Eating slower and chewing more definitely creates the subjective impression of having eaten more for any given size portion. The flip side of this is that so many processed foods which are easy to eat quickly bypass your primary satiety mechanisms.

      On the eyeballing portion size, there's a lab at Cornell that does consumer behavior research that has studied this, and they've come up with a number of interesting results about how people estimate portion size. One is that the size of the plate has a big impact on how much you think you're eating; the same serving on a small plate gives the impression that you've eaten more. If they pour a serving from a large cereal box, it'll be larger than a serving they pour from a small one. If you give them a small box of stale popcorn, they'll eat a little of it then complain. If you give them a large box of stale pop corn, they'll eat a lot then complain.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    12. Re: Well... by hey! · · Score: 2

      It is. So you fit it into your calorie budget.

      First, I don't bother with bad, or even mediocre pizza. At 272 calories/slice for plain jane cheese it'd damn well better be awesome pizza. Second, I plan ahead by reducing my calorie intake in the run up to my splurge. Here's a secret from the ancient Greek philosphers known as the stoics: a little self-denial makes things taste better. If you've been fasting, plain bread is delicious. Pizza eaten after a fast is indescribable.

      Call this sensory hacking if you will. Get a small, very good pizza, and eat it slowly and mindfully in a semi-fasted state, along with a nutrient dense side dish like a salad (no dressing -- you don't want flavor clash here you just want to space the pizza out with something less intense and it may as well be good for you). I guarantee you'll get more enjoyment that you would mindlessly scarfing down an extra large from a pizza chain.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    13. Re: Well... by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You have to add a LOT of salt to a real recipe to get it to resemble anything pre-packaged or bought at a restaurant. If you cook for yourself, "normal" people tend to think you're on some sort of radical low salt diet.

      Sometimes I need to consume extra electrolytes if I drink too much water to flush down my daily pharmacy with.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    14. Re:Well... by geekymachoman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > I did it; I dropped my blood pressure from 128/86 to 105/60, without medication, through diet and exercise. It's not that hard, but the reason I succeeded where many like me fail is that as a geek measuring, tracking and evaluating data comes naturally to me.

      The reason most people 'fail' is because they don't see results immediately. They lack patience, discipline and proper motivation (eg. it's not "i want to be sexy" or "handsome"). I was like this, my GF is like this, I have couple of friends that mentioned it.. etc. It's hard to simulate physical labor and "enjoy" it, or at least.. stick with it as a lifestyle.
      Modern exercise is a simulation of real physical work which comes natural to us. Most people can do physical work, the work itself is a motivation and whatever the product of that work is... but when you take away that work (hence the product) and put a person on a treadmill, there is no natural goal anymore.. and health seems so abstract and far away that most people give up after an hour or so of running aimlessly ( so they feel ). And you have to plan for this, schedule it.. gym memberships etc. which adds to an extra headache.

      I for one *hate* gyms. I don't like sharing space with other people, sharing sweat especially. I don't like locker rooms, public showers etc. either. You will not see me in a gym.

      Point is. You don't need calculations, statistics and mathematics to stick with exercise. That might work for you, but I wouldn't agree it works for most people.
      What people need is a sense of accomplishment, and health + muscle mass etc. to be a CONSEQUENCE, and a side effect, not the main goal.
      If it's like this, and if people do physical labor for proper reasons, then the boredom, and lack of motivation sill not be an issue anymore.

      > Controlling mild hypertension with prescriptions is a choice. You *can* do it with lifestyle changes.

      This not being the common sense is what the problem is with modern society, especially western ones where this way of thinking seem to be prevalent.
      I'm sure if we manage to not kill ourselves, this will be one of the things mentioned in the history books as that retarded thing people from 2000s thought it's ok.
      Like we think that people 2000 years ago were stupid, ignorant, barbaric, etc... this is going down in history as one of the things stupid people of 21 century did.

      Stuff yourself with crap fake food full of chemicals that are not supposed to be there (preservatives, colorings, etc.) that, naturally, effect body chemistry as you're ingesting these, and then take more chemicals to try to fix the consequence of your bad diet and lack of physical movement... and then go about thinking it's actually normal to live like this.

      Good luck to you all.

  2. Life is a disease by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Death is the cure

  3. Re:wrong diet by DogDude · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you're in the USA better to skip the whole grains altogether except as occassional treat, monsanto and company's franken-wheat causes many digestive disorders and elevated blood sugar levels.

    That's complete bullshit. There's zero science behind that.

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
  4. Re:wrong diet by John+Da'+Baddest · · Score: 2

    Let me know when the panic hits beer.

  5. Re:wrong diet by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2

    Monsanto's alien organisms need a living human host to gestate in in order to reach maturity. Telling humans not to eat them is effectively genocide!

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  6. Chang your diet, change your life by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At age 25, I was 6' 3", 160 lbs, and exercised. I had high blood pressure and the doc wanted to put me on medication. I thought I was too young for high blood pressure medication. I instead started eating salads instead of sandwiches, quit eating deli meat, and avoid processed and high sodium foods. I'm now 35, still 160 lbs, and my blood pressure is well within a normal range. You don't need pills. Eat healthy instead.

    1. Re: Chang your diet, change your life by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, it's okay. You're just so used to fat westerners, your perception has been warped.

      https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2003nl/jul/030700puhowdoigainweight.htm

    2. Re:Chang your diet, change your life by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      You don't need pills. Eat healthy instead.

      You do need pills if eating healthy doesn't lower your BP. Some people have ideopathic (doctor speak for: buggered if I know) hypertension.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re: Chang your diet, change your life by Aighearach · · Score: 2

      6'3" 160lbs is exactly what I'd expect the average weight to be of a person that height, even today! ... in North Korea!

    4. Re: Chang your diet, change your life by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What the fuck are you talking about. It's exactly perfectly in the middle of the healthy BMI range. The fact that you think otherwise it's quite telling.

  7. Re:Absolute Joke by avandesande · · Score: 4, Funny

    If you don't want to get sick don't go to the doctor. Works for me!

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism
  8. Re:wrong diet by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 4, Insightful

    >That's complete bullshit. There's zero science behind that.

    Indeed. You don't need frankenwheat to elevate your blood sugar. Regular wheat will do.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  9. try eating less salt by fustakrakich · · Score: 3, Informative

    Let me fix that for you:

    try eating less crap! try to find a less hostile working environment. and most important, don't take on debt.

    Breath slow and deep. Learn how to work a defibrillator.

    You're welcome

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  10. Hysterical Hypertension by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Orgasms lower blood pressure. Americans aren't getting enough sex. Prescribe vibrators.

  11. Stay away from grains... by kaybee · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Vegetables sure, but grains? No way. Try looking into Keto; it virtually guarantees lower blood pressure.

  12. Re: wrong diet by avandesande · · Score: 2

    Carbohydrates cause high blood pressure for the same reason salt does.

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism
  13. Pharma Not Getting Rich On This by chill · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sorry to burst everyone's bubble, but Big Pharma isn't getting rich on this one.

    I've been taking Lisinopril for high blood pressure for a couple years now and a 90 day supply (1 x 20 mg tablet) costs me $3.00 with insurance. Without insurance it is about 3x-4x higher, from what I've seen.

    At 1/3 of a penny per dose, *my cost*, that isn't exactly high profit margin. U.S. Patents expired in 2002, meaning right now it is one of the cheapest medications available. Over the counter aspirin costs more.

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    1. Re:Pharma Not Getting Rich On This by RhettLivingston · · Score: 2

      Many, if not most, are not able to tolerate those older generic medications. Also, many of the older medications have been shown either not to increase or even to decrease lifespan. It is an interesting fact that few blood pressure medications achieve a lifespan increase.

      The only one that I've found to lower my pressure while not suppressing my heart rate during exercise (and thus causing me to pass out) is Losartan. It costs $60 per month or $720 per year.

      At that rate, my medication is around low-midrange in cost. My mother's blood pressure medication costs her $270 per month.

  14. Now the nutrition experts emerge again by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And tell you that you eat all wrong and you have to eat ... well, whatever the latest eating craze is today. Eat this, eat that, and avoid this because it's poison. No matter that the next person recommends eating exactly that and only that, because what you just suggested is killing you within the year.

    You know what? Take your eating disorder in the making and stuff it. As we can see right now, whenever we manage to get healthier, we just move the goalpost on unhealthy. Lower number of heart diseases? Just invent a few new ones!

    We're getting older than ever before. And we die when we get to age 80 from diseases that didn't exist before because, guess what, we died from other diseases that we don't die from anymore. This is a GOOD thing people. Going on a diet that won't make you die at 80 because what you're eating now is slowly (insert bad thing for your body here) isn't going to do you any good if it gives you (bad thing that makes your organ fail) at 50. Then you won't die at 80 from (bad thing) but at 50 from (other bad thing).

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Now the nutrition experts emerge again by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Now the nutrition experts emerge again And tell you that you eat all wrong and you have to eat ... well, whatever the latest eating craze is today.

      The problem isn't nutrition experts, it's people who can't tell the difference between someone on late night TV trying to sell a snake-oil diet and actual nutrition experts.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  15. Re:This is why I never go to the doctor by techno-vampire · · Score: 2

    subscription medications

    Do I have to subscribe through my doctor's office, or can I get a discount rate from Publisher's Clearinghouse?

    --
    Good, inexpensive web hosting
  16. they get you on the preex list for stuff like this by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 2

    they get you on the preexist list for stuff like this

  17. Re:Absolute Joke by avandesande · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nitwits read things into other peoples comments that they didn't say.

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism
  18. All bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    physicians don't even have a standardised way to measure blood pressure. One measurement won't tell you much. You can't say my blood pressure
    is x/y. it can vary a lot and always depends on the circumstance it is measured. To say my blood pressure dropped by 3 points is stupid, because
    my estimate is that the margine of error is at least, depending on the method, between 5 and 10 mm/Hg and not only because of the error of the devices, but also because your physician is a factor for error. Add to that, the variance during the day, the fact that you are supposed to be at rest,
    which sometimes is not possible for some people, because physicians make them nervous.
    So in order to determine your blood pressure, you need at least several measurements a day, for maybe a week. And then you have to look at the curve and at the activity before after and during the measurement. So saying x/y is high blood pressure is stupid. But since medicine is not a science, but just some amateurs playing with statistics, what can you expect?

  19. Re:wrong diet by Aighearach · · Score: 2

    Wheat is also not one of the crops that is typically GMO! lol

    From wikipedia:

    As of 2013, 34 field trials of GM wheat have taken place in Europe and 419 have taken place in the US. ...
    As of 2015, no GM wheat had been approved for release anywhere in the world.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    As for "not even the same species,":

    Bread wheat is an allohexaploid (an allopolyploid with six sets of chromosomes: two sets from each of three different species). Of the six sets of chromosomes, two come from Triticum urartu (einkorn wheat) and two from Aegilops speltoides. This hybridisation created the species Triticum turgidum (durum wheat) 580,000–820,000 years ago. The last two sets of chromosomes came from wild goat-grass Aegilops tauschii 230,000–430,000 years ago.[6][9]

    Free-threshing wheat is closely related to spelt. As with spelt, genes contributed from Aegilops tauschii give bread wheat greater cold hardiness than most wheats, and it is cultivated throughout the world's temperate regions.
    History
    Common wheat was first domesticated in Western Asia during the early Holocene, and spread from there to North Africa, Europe and East Asia in the prehistoric period.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
    Check the dates before deciding if it is really different to what they were eating prehistorically. ;)

    See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  20. Hilarious by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 2

    "Congratulations! You now have a "pre-existing condition", so please enjoy the massive increase in your health insurance premiums!" - literally every insurance company in America

    I find it hilarious that this got modded as "Flamebait", as if insurance companies don't list high blood pressure as a pre-existing condition (and don't increase your premiums for it). They sure as shit do. Ask me how I know.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...