The reduction in cardiovascular mortality and morbidity was primarily due to a reduction in cerebrovascular mortality and morbidity .
AUTHORS ' CONCLUSIONS Treating healthy adults 60 years or older with moderate to severe systolic and /or diastolic hypertension with antihypertensive drug therapy reduced all-cause mortality , cardiovascular mortality and morbidity , cerebrovascular mortality and morbidity , and coronary heart disease mortality and morbidity .
Most evidence of benefit pertains to a primary prevention population using a thiazide as first-line treatment
BACKGROUND This is the second substantive up date of this review .
It was originally published in 1998 and was previously up date d in 2009 .
Elevated blood pressure ( known as ' hypertension ' ) increases with age - most rapidly over age 60 .
Systolic hypertension is more strongly associated with cardiovascular disease than is diastolic hypertension , and it occurs more commonly in older people .
It is important to know the benefits and harms of antihypertensive treatment for hypertension in this age group , as well as separately for people 60 to 79 years old and people 80 years or older .
The need to treat mild hypertension. Misinterpretation of results from the Australian trial.
Despite the clear-cut result of the Australian Therapeutic Trial in Mild Hypertension , which demonstrated prospect ively the benefit of treatment of diastolic blood pressure in the range of 95 to 109 mm Hg , a retrospective analysis that classified subjects by the average diastolic pressure level attained during the trial purported to show an absence of treatment benefit at lower average diastolic pressures and a negative treatment effect at higher levels . However , the method of classification by average attained diastolic pressure introduced substantial selection bias , invalidating the retrospective analysis and rendering as spurious both the deleterious treatment effect and its lack of efficacy at lower diastolic levels
The reduction in cardiovascular mortality and morbidity was primarily due to a reduction in cerebrovascular mortality and morbidity .
AUTHORS ' CONCLUSIONS Treating healthy adults 60 years or older with moderate to severe systolic and /or diastolic hypertension with antihypertensive drug therapy reduced all-cause mortality , cardiovascular mortality and morbidity , cerebrovascular mortality and morbidity , and coronary heart disease mortality and morbidity .
Most evidence of benefit pertains to a primary prevention population using a thiazide as first-line treatment
BACKGROUND This is the second substantive up date of this review .
It was originally published in 1998 and was previously up date d in 2009 .
Elevated blood pressure ( known as ' hypertension ' ) increases with age - most rapidly over age 60 .
Systolic hypertension is more strongly associated with cardiovascular disease than is diastolic hypertension , and it occurs more commonly in older people .
It is important to know the benefits and harms of antihypertensive treatment for hypertension in this age group , as well as separately for people 60 to 79 years old and people 80 years or older .