Hypertension, not essential: an epidemic preventable by improved eating patterns

Estudios importantes sobre hipertension arterial de Cuba y el mundo

Hypertension, not essential: an epidemic preventable by improved eating patterns

Por: J Stamler.  Journal of Human Hypertension (2013) 27, 581–582.

In most populations worldwide, blood pressure (BP) rises substantially with age from youth through middle age. The consequence is that adverse BP levels—prehypertensive and hypertensive—are epidemic, as are their adverse effects: morbidity, disability and premature death from major cardiovascular diseases (CVD; coronary heart disease, stroke, congestive heart failure and so on).
For decades, most persons with high BP were diagnosed as having essential hypertension.The word essential in front of hypertension served physicians as a tidy way to signify ignorance of the causes of adverse BP, and to justify—in the era before effective antihypertensive medications—‘watchful waiting’ and ‘judicious neglect’.
[Actualizado: 30 de septiembre 2013]