USA TODAY published an article on the front page of the January 31, 2019 issue titled: "Study: Half of Americans Have Heart Disease". This is true. That's 121.5 million Americans or 48.5 %. The majority of that group (about 40% of the 48.5%) have high blood pressure alone. That's a major jump from previous numbers. Why? It's due to a change in the standard definition of high blood pressure. That happened due to the JNC(standards committee) announcement of November 2017. I'm personally frustrated that it took 14 years to make that change. The latest previous definition was 2003. They used higher numbers to define the cut point for high blood pressure (140/90). The discussion after the 2003 JNC went like this, "There was a case to define it lower. But we expect the next JNC in 2 years to make that change if it turns out valid." The problem? It wasn't 2 years later. It was 14 years. This is a group of the AHA (American Heart Association) and ACC (American College of Cardiology). https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/01/31/heart-disease-nearly-half-u-s-adults-have-it-study-finds/2729955002/ https://professional.heart.org/professional/ScienceNews/UCM_496965_2017-Hypertension-Clinical-Guidelines.jsp
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