In the last year new guidelines relating to cardiovascular disease have been the subject of intense criticism and debate. The status of the blood pressure guidelines has been particularly contentious, since several different groups have published contradictory guidelines, while several authors of the most prominent group, the Eighth Joint National Committee, published an impassioned dissent from their own published guideline. Many hypertension experts have taken aim at the change in therapeutic target for systolic blood pressure in patients age 60 or older, from 140 mm Hg to 150 mm Hg.
In an attempt to determine the optimal blood pressure for patients age 60 or older, Sripal Bangalore and colleagues performed a post-hoc analysis of 8,354 patients who participated in the INVEST trial, who were age 60 or older, and who had a baseline systolic blood pressure greater than 150 mm Hg…
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