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Medicine Could Help Hypertensive Patients Live Longer! Hypertension, or more commonly known as high blood pressure, is a condition in which the blood pressure readings consistently stay above 140/90 mmHg. ‘140’ is the systolic blood pressure and '80’ is the diastolic blood pressure. In the past, it was thought that hike in diastolic blood pressure was a more important risk factor than that in systolic blood pressure. But now the general consensus is that systolic hypertension represents a greater risk for people who are 50 years and above. According to American Heart Association (AHA), approximately 1 in 3 adults (about 73 million) in the United States of America (USA) has hypertension, and there are about 2 million American teens and children are victim of hypertension. Meanwhile, a 2010’s report by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) revealed that more than 68 percent of Americans who aged 65 and older and 80 percent who aged 75 and over have hypertension. But as reported by the ‘Journal of the American Medical Association’, many are under diagnosed. Hypertension, if left untreated, can lead to many diseases including stroke, heart disease (including heart attack, heart failure), and peripheral arterial disease. It is also a cause of chronic kidney disease, and it can even lead to premature death.
Hence, doctors will usually prescribe to theirs patients antihypertensive medications, such as beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors and calcium channel blockers, to bring down their blood pressure readings to the normal range: 120/80 mm Hg. In a follow-up study to the clinical trial, Systolic Hypertension in the Elderly Program (SHEP), a group of researchers from UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and the University of Texas have shown that use of antihypertensive drug therapy can lead to longer life expectancy. SHEP, conducted by researchers from The Cardiovascular Institute of New Jersey, assessed the effect of antihypertensive drug treatment in lowering the risk of stroke from 1985 to 1990. More than 4,700 participants with an average age of 72 and isolated systolic hypertension were enrolled. The participants were randomly selected to either chlorthalidone-based therapy, or to the placebo group. Results of the trial showed that chlorthalidone-based therapy resulted in the prevention of about 1 out of 2 admissions for heart failure, 1 out of 3 fatal or non-fatal strokes and 1 out of 4 coronary heart disease events. But there were no significant differences in mortality. All participants in both groups were advised to receive treatment for hypertension at the end of the trial. The follow-up study, which was known as "Association Between Treatment of Systolic Hypertension and Long-Term Survival", was published online on December 21, 2011 in the ‘Journal of the American Medical Association’. It was funded in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Mortality and cause-of-death data were obtained for 100 percent of the participants from SHEP through December 2006. Using statistical methods, the researchers found that the length in time that patients survived without having a cardiovascular-related death was significantly longer for the group that received chlorthalidone treatment: approximately 1 day for every month of antihypertensive treatment. For people who started treatment in the 50s, this may mean that their life could be prolonged by more than a year. Researchers also analyzed the life expectancy for all-cause mortality by taking into account of the average age of the participants and the significance of competing causes of death (like cancer). The results showed that a gain of half-a-day for each month of antihypertensive treatment in the chlorthalidone treatment group over the placebo group. Longer survival as a result of treatment of hypertension might also yield important benefits, like allowing a person to work for a longer period of time so that their income potential is increased. Treatment of hypertension might also save cost because of a reduced need for invasive cardiovascular and emergency procedures.
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