June 10, 2020Open Access
Association of Normal Systolic Blood Pressure Level With Cardiovascular Disease in the Absence of Risk Factors
Structured PICO
Is increasing systolic blood pressure within the normal range associated with increased risk of coronary artery calcium and incident ASCVD in individuals without traditional risk factors?
P
Population
Individuals without traditional cardiovascular risk factors
I
Intervention
Increasing normal systolic blood pressure (SBP) levels (starting at 90 mm Hg)
C
Comparator
Lower normal SBP levels
O
Outcome
Presence of coronary artery calcium and risk of incident ASCVDhard clinical
Even within ranges traditionally considered normal (starting at 90 mm Hg), increasing systolic blood pressure is associated with a graded increase in ASCVD risk, highlighting the importance of primordial prevention.
Abstract
Beginning at an SBP level as low as 90 mm Hg, there appears to be a stepwise increase in the presence of coronary artery calcium and the risk of incident ASCVD with increasing SBP levels. These results highlight the importance of primordial prevention for SBP level increase and other traditional ASCVD risk factors, which generally seem to have similar trajectories of graded increase in risk within values traditionally considered to be normal.
Cite This Study
Whelton et al. (Wed,) studied this question.