BMJ, doi: 10.1136/bmj.39560.541725.80, (Published 14 May 2008)

Editorials

Reducing blood pressure in people of different ages

Absolute benefit increases with age and management of overall cardiovascular risk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

In the accompanying paper, the Blood Pressure Lowering Treatment Trialists’ Collaboration (BPLTTC) compares the effects of different regimens for reducing blood pressure in different age groups.¹ The meta-analysis found that across 31 trials of more than 190 000 randomised patients, the reduction in blood pressure with various antihypertensive drugs was independent of the patients’ ages.

Previous large scale prospective observational studies and meta-regression analyses have highlighted the role of reducing blood pressure for preventing cardiovascular complications in patients with hypertension.^{2 3 4 5} The new BPLTTC analysis shows that the relative risk reduction of a cardiovascular event with tighter blood pressure control occurs irrespective of the patient’s age.¹

One potential limitation of the BPLTTC analysis is that the age difference between younger and older patients was only about 15 years, and that 65 years was the arbitrary cut off between younger and older patients. However, subsidiary analyses with age fitted as a continuous . . . [Full text of this article]

¹ Studies Coordinating Centre, Laboratory of Hypertension, Campus Gasthuisberg, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium, ² Department of Epidemiology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands, ³ Dipartimento Malattie Cardiovascolari, Hospital Santa Maria della Misericordia, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

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