DIABETES IN YOUNG ADULTS
Younger adults are less likely than older people to know they have
high blood pressure and to treat the condition, increasing their risk for heart
attacks and strokes, a U.S. study suggests.
For the study, researchers
examined data from more than 41,000 participants in eight national health
surveys from 1999 to 2014.
Their findings, extended to
the general population, suggest that by the end of the study period, only half
of the 6.7 million young adults aged 18 to 39 with high blood pressure received
treatment and only 40 percent got their blood pressure, or hypertension, under
control.
By comparison, 70 percent
of middle-aged adults aged 40 to 59 and 83 percent of adults aged 60 and older
with high blood pressure got it treated, and more than half of these older
patients got the condition under control.
“Hypertension awareness,
treatment, and control have improved in young adults in recent years, but not
enough to close the quality gap in hypertension management between young and
older adults,” said study co-author Dr. Andrew Moran of Columbia University
Medical Center in New York City.
Overall, about 75 million
U.S. adults, or 32 percent, had high blood pressure by the end of the study
period, researchers report in the journal Hypertension.
Men account for much of the
age gap in blood pressure treatment and control, the study found.
For example, 68 percent of
young men with high blood pressure knew they had the condition, compared with
86 percent of young women.
Just 44 percent of young
men with high blood pressure received treatment for the condition, and only 34
percent got their blood pressure under control.
More than 61 percent of
young women with high blood pressure got treatment and 52 percent of them got
the condition under control, the study found.
While the study didn’t
examine why young women did better at managing high blood pressure than young
men, the study authors say it’s possible women get more frequent blood pressure
checks because they have more routine healthcare visits for gynecological exams
or prenatal care.
Obesity also contributed to
age differences in high blood pressure.
Almost three in four young
adults with high blood pressure were obese, compared with 57 percent of middle-aged
adults and 42 percent of older adults.
The study included survey
data on 41,331 adults.
It wasn’t a controlled
experiment designed to prove whether or how factors like age, obesity or gender
might influence the odds of developing high blood pressure or treating it
properly.
Another limitation is that
researchers only had blood pressure data from a single point in time, and they
lacked data on lifestyle modifications to manage hypertension such as changes
in diet or exercise habits.
Even so, elevated blood
pressure in adolescence and young adulthood can contribute to changes in blood
vessels that lead to heart attacks and strokes later in life, said Dr. Holly
Gooding, a researcher at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s
Hospital in Boston who wasn’t involved in the study.
“The best strategy is to
prevent high blood pressure in the first place, by engaging in regular physical
activity, eating a heart healthy diet, and avoiding tobacco,” Gooding said by
email.
When people do need
medication to manage high blood pressure, they can get better results when
they’re young, Gooding noted.
“This is yet another reason
to focus greater resources on cardiovascular disease prevention earlier in
life,” Gooding said. “We are likely to get more return on our investment.”
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