High blood pressure is not a disease, it is a risk factor
Many health care professionals have folks obsessing on their cholesterol or their blood pressure.
It is true that high blood pressure is a risk for heart attacks and strokes. One difficulty in treating blood pressure is that most people don’t have any symptoms from their blood pressure, but the treatments have side effects. There are non-drug treatments for high blood pressure, but if these don’t work, your doctor will want to add Blood Pressure Drugs.
We will give you the information you need figure out the risks and the benefits of treating high blood pressure. You should discuss your risks and benefits with your doctor.
First, you should start with a good estimate of how much your blood pressure is increasing your risk and then check out how much drug treatment is likely to improve the risk.
Remember a 10 year risk of 12% risk means you have an 88% chance of not having a heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years.
Scroll down for some tables that may help or go to the Framingham Risk Calculator. Your risk is higher than the calculator or the tables tell you if you have Diabetes or if one of your parents had a heart attack before they were 60 years old.
42 Year Old Man with Cholesterol of 200 and HDL of 42
| Systolic Blood Pressure | 10 Yr Risk without Treatment | 10 risk with BP treatment |
|---|---|---|
| Non-Smoker | ||
| 140 | 3% | 2% |
| 180 | 4% | 3% |
| Smoker | ||
| 140 | 12% | 8%% |
| 180 | 17% | 13% |
70 Year Old Man with Cholesterol of 200 and HDL of 42
| Systolic Blood Pressure | 10 Yr Risk without Treatment | 10 risk with BP treatment |
|---|---|---|
| Non-Smoker | ||
| 140 | 20% | 14% |
| 180 | 26% | 19% |
| Smoker | ||
| 140 | 26% | 19% |
| 180 | 30% | 21% |
42 Year Old Woman with Cholesterol of 200 and HDL of 42
| Systolic Blood Pressure | 10 Yr Risk without Treatment | 10 risk with BP treatment |
|---|---|---|
| Non-Smoker | ||
| 140 | 1% | 1% |
| 180 | 1% | 1% |
| Smoker | ||
| 140 | 5% | better to quit smoking |
| 180 | 8% | better to quit smoking |
70 Year Old Woman with Cholesterol of 200 and HDL of 42
| Systolic Blood Pressure | 10 Yr Risk without Treatment | 10 risk with BP treatment |
|---|---|---|
| Non-Smoker | ||
| 140 | 7% | 5% |
| 180 | 12% | 8% |
| Smoker | ||
| 140 | 9% | 6% |
| 180 | 12% | 8% |