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(Hypertension. 2000;35:1019.)
© 2000 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorial

Recognition of Systolic Hypertension for Hypertension

Edward D. Frohlich¹

¹ Editor-in-Chief

	Introduction

 
Recently, much concern has been raised by the National High Blood Pressure Education Program (NHBPEP) about the need for a fresh focus on the recognition of hypertension and the need to revitalize hypertension control efforts. Clearly, there has been a relaxation in the intensity and vigor for the identification of new patients with hypertension, for the necessity to maintain antihypertensive therapy in those patients who have already been recognized, and, in general, for the need to revitalize a national effort directed toward the identification and maintained treatment of patients with hypertension.^{1 2}

In response to this unacceptable situation, Dr Claude Lenfant, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, which is the sponsor of the NHBPEP, provoked intensified discussion on this subject. He advocated increased attention to this problem while not dispiriting the public. Consequently, in this issue of Hypertension, we are pleased to feature a report from the NHBPEP on a renewed need to identify patients with elevated systolic arterial pressures, to evaluate their medical circumstances, and then to bring their systolic arterial pressure under control with the use of lifestyle interventions, if possible, and/or with pharmacological interventions if not.

There are several possible reasons why the problem of systolic pressure elevation has not achieved the attention that it deserves. First, it was not until recent years that systolic blood pressure was found to be of major importance.^{3 4 5 6} However, treatment of patients with systolic hypertension has been advocated since publication of JNC-4.⁷ . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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