Blood Pressure Reduction and Cardiovascular Outcomes: Past, Present, and Future

Hypertension has not always been recognized as a harbinger of cardiovascular complications and premature death. Only 70 years ago, hypertension was considered the body’s adaptation to sclerotic blood vessel disease and essential to maintain organ perfusion; thus, treatment was regarded as undesirable. Epidemiologic studies have since established a strong linear relation between blood pressure and cardiovascular disease (CVD), and randomized trials have documented that blood pressure reductions by antihypertensive drugs confer cardiovascular protection, making the hypertension-related risk a reversible risk. There is now a consensus that blood pressure should be reduced to <140/90 mm Hg in all patients and that a more aggressive blood pressure target (<130/80 mm Hg) should be pursued in those in whom the cardiovascular risk is high. Despite this, blood pressure control remains elusive in most individuals in the hypertensive population, which makes improvement of blood pressure control in this population a priority goal. This goal may meet with new challenges, however. Optimal blood pressure control may have to include the measurement of blood pressure every day, given the fluctuations of blood pressure and their prognostic importance independent of and in addition to that of classically measured blood pressure values.