CVD Risk by Blood Pressure

[Guest guest]

Hi folks:

Here is an interesting paper relating CVD event risk to blood

pressure, using the data from the Framingham study:

http://hyper.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/42/4/453

Particularly notable, perhaps, is that among males aged 65 to 94,

with pulse pressure less than 40 mm Hg the number of events is a

microscopic 2 per 1000 (per year?):

" Data from the Framingham Study indicate that at SBPs of 120 to 139

mm Hg in the elderly, the relative risk of CHD increases the lower

accompanying DBP. "

Intuitively one might think that a combination of low systolic and

low pulse pressure would be even better. Unfortunately many of the

other tables in the paper do not differentiate between levels of

systolic below 120 (at the lower end data are provided only

for 'below 120').

Rodney.