Focus on Systolic Blood pressure over 50 s

Systolic blood pressure should become the sole defining feature of hypertension and key treatment target for people over age 50 years. The reason is systolic pressure rises with age, diastolic pressure increases until around age 50 and falls thereafter. What about patients below the age of 50, Read more... Among people under age 40 years, as many as 40% of patients with high blood pressure have isolated diastolic hypertension, and between ages 40 and 50 years, such disease accounts for a third of hypertension. So in patients younger than 50 years a continued emphasis on both diastolic and systolic pressures remains appropriate. Read online publication in recent Lancet..