Prevalence and long-term prognosis of mild hypertensives and hypertensives in a Japanese community, Hisayama

Abstract

The prognosis and outcome for mild hypertensives (90 mmHg .ltoreq. diastolic pressure .ltoreq. 104 mmHg) and hypertensive (diastolic pressure .gtoreq. 105 mmHg) was prospectively stuided in Hisayama, Japan, and compared between 1621 subjects aged 40 years or over, recruited in 1961, and 2053 subjects recruited in 1974. Each cohort was studied in a follow-up which lasted 10 years. The pharmacological treatment of hypertension proved effective among residents recruited in 1974: the survival rate had favorably improved, and the rates of mortality from cerebral stroke and morbidity from intracerebral stroke and morbidity from intracerebral hemorrhage declined significantly in mild hypertensives and hypertensives in the more recently recruited population. The management of mild hypertension was considered more likely to be effective in reducing stroke than in reducing coronary heart disease in the Japanese general population.