Blood pressure level and relation to other cardiovascular risk factors in male hypertensive patients without clinical evidence of ischemic heart disease

Arterial hypertension is accompanied by increased morbidity and mortality a nd constitutes a substantial part of medical care. Antihypertensive interve ntion reduces the cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The aims of the s tudy were to evaluate the relationship between cardiovascular risk factors and the blood pressure (BP), and to evaluate the percentage of patients who had achieved a BP level as recommended by the sixth report of the Joint Na tional Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of Hig h Blood Pressure (JNC VI). BP was evaluated in relation to age, body mass i ndex, duration of hypertension, cholesterol and triglyceride level, smoking status, information of regular exercise, a family history of ischemic hear t disease (IHD) and drug treatment, in 220 men treated for arterial hyperte nsion. In the univariate analyses we found a higher systolic blood pressure (SBP) with older age, higher SEP in smoking patients and lower SEP in pati ents with regular exercise. In a multivariate model age (p = 0.0004), smoki ng status (p = 0.01) and regular exercise (p = 0.06) were independently ass ociated with SEP. There was a lower diastolic blood pressure (DBP) with old er age, and age was independently associated with DBP. Office SEP was above 140 mmHg in 83% and above 160 mmHg in 44% of patients. During ambulatory b lood pressure monitoring (AMBP), SEP was above 135 mmHg in 40% and above 15 5 mmHg in 15% of patients. In addition to male sex and hypertension there w as a high percentage of other cardiovascular risk factors-43% was smoking, 21% had a family history of IHD, 77% had a se-cholesterol above 5.5 mmol/l and 48% had a se-triglyceride above 1.6 mmol/l. In a consecutive group of a symptomatic male treated hypertensive patients SBP is independently associa ted with age and smoking status, and DBP with age. A high percentage of the patients do not have a well controlled BP, and a high percentage have addi tional risk factors such as smoking, hypercholesterolaemia, hypertriglyceri daemia and a family history of IHD. This means that there is room for much improvement in the control of hypertension.