Nearly 20% Of Young Adults In US May Have High Blood Pressure.

Nearly 20% Of Young Adults In US May Have High Blood Pressure.
ABC World News (5/25, story 6, 0:25, Sawyer) reported that research published online in Epidemiology indicates that nearly one-fifth "of Americans who are 24 to 32 years old have high blood pressure."
USA Today (5/26, Marcus) reports, "For the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, dubbed Add Health, funded by the National Institutes of Health, researchers from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill asked 14,000 men and women between the ages of 24 and 32 about their high blood pressure history and then took blood pressure readings of participants." The investigators "found that 19% of participants had high blood pressure." These "findings...are significantly higher than other recent research from another large, ongoing health study, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which found only 4% of adults 20 to 39 have high blood pressure."
The CNN (5/25) "The Chart" blog reported that lead study author Kathleen Mullan Harris said that "among those measured with high blood pressure, only 25% had been told previously that they had high blood pressure."
Also covering the story were Reuters (5/26, Steenhuysen), the PBS News Hour (5/26, Clune, Kane) "The Rundown" blog, the Raleigh News & Observer (5/26, Price), WebMD (5/25, Mann), HealthDay (5/25, Dallas), and MedPage Today (5/25, Neale).
Masked Hypertension May Be Prevalent In 45% Of African Americans. HeartWire (5/25, O'Riordan) reported that research "presented this week" at the American Society of Hypertension 2011 Scientific Meeting "confirm the high prevalence of masked hypertension in African Americans, with investigators reporting that masked hypertension is prevalent in 45% of African Americans during any single office visit." The findings "suggest that blood-pressure monitoring in the office might not be sufficient to assess cardiovascular-risk exposure in this population and that out-of-office blood pressure monitoring might be needed to expose underlying hypertension."
Single-Pill Combinations May Achieve Better Blood Pressure Control Than Other Regimens. MedPage Today (5/25, Neale) reported that "initiating antihypertensive treatment with single-pill combinations achieves better blood pressure control rates within a year than either free-dose combinations or monotherapy outside of the clinical trial setting," according to a study presented at the American Society of Hypertension meeting. Investigators found, "after adjustment for several factors," that "use of a single-pill combination to start therapy was the strongest predictor of blood pressure control (HR 1.21, 95% CI 1.18 to 1.25) compared with monotherapy." Although "the use of a free-dose combination also was significantly better than monotherapy...the magnitude of the association was smaller (HR 1.08, 95% CI 1.06 to 1.10)."