A new study by investigators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital puts the results of a landmark trial about blood pressure control into terms that may be easier to interpret and communicate to patients. When data from The Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT) were published in 2015, the medical community responded enthusiastically to the news that reducing blood pressure lower than the normal targets could reduce overall death rates by 27 percent for adults at high cardiovascular risk. While these study results are being integrated into clinical practice, explaining what they mean and why they are important to patients can be challenging. Investigators from the Brigham describe how aggressively lowering blood pressure levels can extend a person’s life expectancy. They report that having a blood pressure target of less than 120 mm Hg—rather than the standard 140 mm Hg—can add six months to three years to a person’s lifetime, depending upon how old they are when they begin intensive blood pressure control. Results are published in JAMA Cardiology.
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