About 1/3 of American adults have high blood pressure and more than half of them don’t have it under control. The majority of people with high blood pressure are being treated with medicine and have seen a doctor at least twice in the past year… but their pressure still isn’t under control, according to a new Vital Signs report from the CDC this week.
High blood pressure means blood pressure greater than or equal to 140/90 mm- Hg… and its direct health care cost is almost $131B per year. To learn more about blood pressure, visit www.cdc.gov/bloodpressure/. For more information on heart disease and stroke, visit http://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/. Controlling high blood pressure is also a key component of the Million Hearts initiative to prevent a million heart attacks and strokes by 2017.
