Severe Hypertension: 'Silent Killer'

Washington, Feb 4 (UNI) High blood pressure may be one of the top killers in the world, a recent research says.

It was found that although 90 per cent of the patients already had a diagnosis of high blood pressure, about a quarter of them were not taking the medicines they were supposed to. The researchers also found that extremely high blood pressure was related to high complication and death rates.

''Research shows that some 73 million people in the US have high blood pressure, yet many of them don't even know it.

And among those that do, a large number are not taking the medications they need to control it,'' said Christopher Granger, cardiologist at Duke University Medical Center.

Many of the patients already had major organ damage and over six per cent of them died in the hospital. Upon discharge, most of the patients were given prescriptions for at least two medicines, but 41 per cent had to be readmitted within three months, Science Daily reported.

''Severe hypertension is a very common problem, but we really know very little about it. There is a huge need to improve care for these patients,'' said Dr Granger.

It was discovered that when patients' systolic blood pressure readings fell below 95 or went higher than 135, there was a greater risk of death within the following month, with the risk of death increasing with the amount and duration of the deviation from that range.

''This is the first time that anyone has determined the optimal range for blood pressure management during these procedures,'' said Solomon Aronson, an Anesthesiologist at Duke.

''We still have a long way to go before we can understand and successfully manage the subtle and complex effects that targeted blood pressure control has on overall health,'' he said.

''Just because high blood pressure is a common problem it doesn't mean that we know how best to deal with it,'' he added.

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