Age-specific association between blood pressure and vascular and non-vascular chronic diseases in 0·5 million adults in China: a prospective cohort study
Authors: Ben Lacey, Sarah Lewington, Robert Clarke, Xiang Ling Kong, Yiping Chen, Yu Guo, Ling Yang, Derrick Bennett, Fiona Bragg, Zheng Bian, Shaojie Wang, Hua Zhang, Junshi Chen, Robin G Walters, Rory Collins, Richard Peto, Liming Li, Zhengming Chen, Junshi Chen, Zhengming Chen, Robert Clarke, Rory Collins, Yu Guo, Liming Li, Jun Lv, Richard Peto, Robin Walters, Daniel Avery, Derrick Bennett, Ruth Boxall, Fiona Bragg, Yumei Chang, Yiping Chen, Zhengming Chen, Robert Clarke, Huaidong Du, Simon Gilbert, Alex Hacker, Michael Holmes, Andri Iona, Christiana Kartsonaki, Rene Kerosi, Om Kurmi, Sarah Lewington, Garry Lancaster, Kuang Lin, John McDonnell, Iona Millwood, Qunhua Nie, Jayakrishnan Radhakrishnan, Paul Ryder, Sam Sansome, Dan Schmidt, Paul Sherliker, Rajani Sohoni, Becky Stevens, Iain Turnbull, Robin Walters, Jenny Wang, Lin Wang, Neil Wright, Ling Yang, Xiaoming Yang, Zheng Bian, Ge Chen, Yu Guo, Xiao Han, Can Hou, Jun Lv, Pei Pei, Shuzhen Qu, Yunlong Tan, Canqing Yu, Zengchang Pang, Ruqin Gao, Shaojie Wang, Yongmei Liu, Ranran Du, Yajing Zang, Liang Cheng, Xiaocao Tian, Hua Zhang, Silu Lv, Junzheng Wang, Wei Hou, Jiyuan Yin, Ge Jiang, Xue Zhou, Liqiu Yang, Hui He, Bo Yu, Yanjie Li, Huaiyi Mu, Qinai Xu, Meiling Dou, Jiaojiao Ren, Shanqing Wang, Ximin Hu, Hongmei Wang, Jinyan Chen, Yan Fu, Zhenwang Fu, Xiaohuan Wang, Min Weng, Xiangyang Zheng, Yilei Li, Huimei Li, Yanjun Wang, Ming Wu, Jinyi Zhou, Ran Tao, Jie Yang, Chuanming Ni, Jun Zhang, Yihe Hu, Yan Lu, Liangcai Ma, Aiyu Tang, Shuo Zhang, Jianrong Jin, Jingchao Liu, Zhenzhu Tang, Naying Chen, Ying Huang, Mingqiang Li, Jinhuai Meng, Rong Pan, Qilian Jiang, Weiyuan Zhang, Yun Liu, Liuping Wei, Liyuan Zhou, Ningyu Chen, Hairong Guan, Xianping Wu, Ningmei Zhang, Xiaofang Chen, Xuefeng Tang, Guojin Luo, Jianguo Li, Xiaofang Chen, Xunfu Zhong, Jiaqiu Liu, Qiang Sun, Pengfei Ge, Xiaolan Ren, Caixia Dong, Hui Zhang, Enke Mao, Xiaoping Wang, Tao Wang, Xi Zhang, Ding Zhang, Gang Zhou, Shixian Feng, Liang Chang, Lei Fan, Yulian Gao, Tianyou He, Huarong Sun, Pan He, Chen Hu, Qiannan Lv, Xukui Zhang, Min Yu, Ruying Hu, Hao Wang, Yijian Qian, Chunmei Wang, Kaixue Xie, Lingli Chen, Yidan Zhang, Dongxia Pan, Yuelong Huang, Biyun Chen, Li Yin, Donghui Jin, Huilin Liu, Zhongxi Fu, Qiaohua Xu, Xin Xu, Hao Zhang, Youping Xiong, Huajun Long, Xianzhi Li, Libo Zhang, Zhe Qiu
Journal: The Lancet Global Health (2018)

BackgroundThe age-specific association between blood pressure and vascular disease has been studied mostly in high-income countries, and before the widespread use of brain imaging for diagnosis of the main stroke types (ischaemic stroke and intracerebral haemorrhage). We aimed to investigate this relationship among adults in China.Methods512 891 adults (59% women) aged 30–79 years were recruited into a prospective study from ten areas of China between June 25, 2004, and July 15, 2008. Participants attended assessment centres where they were interviewed about demographic and lifestyle characteristics, and their blood pressure, height, and weight were measured. Incident disease was identified through linkage to local mortality records, chronic disease registries, and claims to the national health insurance system. We used Cox regression analysis to produce adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) relating systolic blood pressure to disease incidence. HRs were corrected for regression dilution to estimate associations with long-term average (usual) systolic blood pressure.FindingsDuring a median follow-up of 9 years (IQR 8–10), there were 88 105 incident vascular and non-vascular chronic disease events (about 90% of strokes events were diagnosed using brain imaging). At ages 40–79 years (mean age at event 64 years [SD 9]), usual systolic blood pressure was continuously and positively associated with incident major vascular disease throughout the range 120–180 mm Hg: each 10 mm Hg higher usual systolic blood pressure was associated with an approximately 30% higher risk of ischaemic heart disease (HR 1·31 [95% CI 1·28–1·34]) and ischaemic stroke (1·30 [1·29–1·31]), but the association with intracerebral haemorrhage was about twice as steep (1·68 [1·65–1·71]). HRs for vascular disease were twice as steep at ages 40–49 years than at ages 70–79 years. Usual systolic blood pressure was also positively associated with incident chronic kidney disease (1·40 [1·35–1·44]) and diabetes (1·14 [1·12–1·15]). About half of all vascular deaths in China were attributable to elevated blood pressure (ie, systolic blood pressure >120 mm Hg), accounting for approximately 1 million deaths (<80 years of age) annually.InterpretationAmong adults in China, systolic blood pressure was continuously related to major vascular disease with no evidence of a threshold down to 120 mm Hg. Unlike previous studies in high-income countries, blood pressure was more strongly associated with intracerebral haemorrhage than with ischaemic stroke. Even small reductions in mean blood pressure at a population level could be expected to have a major impact on vascular morbidity and mortality.FundingUK Wellcome Trust, UK Medical Research Council, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Kadoorie Charitable Foundation, Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, and the National Science Foundation of China.