Samsung Medical Center, People with pre-hypertensive level blood pressure are also in risk of having heart disease

A recent study showed that people with a systolic blood pressure of 120 mmHg to 139 mmHg, which corresponds to the pre-hypertensive stage, should pay attention to the possibility of getting a cardiovascular disease. Professor Lee, Moon Kyu MD of Samsung Medical Center Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism and Professor Seo, SeongHwan of Dong-A University Hospital Department of Endocrinology published results in Korean Health and Genome Study (KHGS) after analyzing 10,038 people aged 40 to under 70 for 10 years. The results showed that people with systolic blood pressure of 130 mmHg have a 76.7% higher risk of having a cardiovascular disease than normal subjects. In addition, the risk of having a coronary artery disease, which causes acute myocardial infarction, was increased by 80.7%. The research team also confirmed that the risk of death from all causes increased by 81.7%. Moreover, the risk of having a cardiovascular disease was 50.6% and that of coronary artery disease was 47.2% higher in people with blood pressure in range of 120mmHg to 129mmHg, which is a little higher than the normal range. The research team said, “Even in the pre-hypertensive phase, it is important to make efforts to prevent possible risks through active and preliminary management and treatment.”