AHA Releases New Guidelines for Hypertension Treament

New guidelines released by the American Heart Association lower thresholds for both Stage 1 and Stage 2 hypertension. The new standard for treatment is a blood pressure reading of 130/80 or higher. That means more people will fall into those classifications, which could lead to an increase in prescription medications. Jennifer Newman is the Director of Cardiac Rehab at Lake Regional. Newman says if the problem is detected early enough it could be treated with exercise and diet.

 

Two factors of hypertension that you can’t control are genetics and aging. There’s no set treatment for hypertension, according to Newman, who says treatment is usually set up on a case-by-case basis depending on the individual patient.