Mean Blood Pressure Falling Worldwide

A study that analyzed patterns of blood pressure in 38 populations found that average blood pressure is falling, but this is not due to medication.

Researchers who worked on the World Health Organization's (WHO, Geneva, Switzerland) multinational monitoring of trends and determinants in the MONICA (MONItoring CArdiovascular disease) study analyzed patterns of blood pressure in a total of 38 populations in 21 nations during the mid-1980s to mid-1990s. The results showed a mean reduction in systolic pressure of 2.2 mm Hg in men and 3.3 mm Hg in women, and a mean reduction of diastolic pressure of 1.4 mm Hg in men and 2.2 mm Hg in women. The study was published in the March 11, 2006, issue of The British Medical Journal.

The authors are not sure what caused the small but significant decline but they believe it could be due to a variety of factors, such as eating less salt and more fruits and vegetables. They ruled out blood-pressure-lowering drugs because the decreases they saw in the study were not just in people with high blood pressure taking drugs to control it. Levels also decreased in people with middle and low blood-pressure readings.

Blood pressure is changing in the population independent of medication. Whatever is moving the blood pressure must be more powerful, said lead author Professor Hugh Tunstall-Pedoe, of the cardiovascular epidemiology unit at the University of Dundee Ninewells Hospital Medical School (Scotland, UK). We know that population levels of blood pressure vary in an unexpected manner in different populations. The three Finnish populations, for example, had much higher levels than those in southern Europe and some other populations.



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