Aiming for blood pressure targets lower than 140/90 mmHg is not beneficial

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This is the conclusion of a newly published Cochrane review. Data that support targeting lower targets with drugs just does not exist. As expected from a Cochrane review, they looked at patients’ relevant outcomes as total mortality, myocardial infarction, stroke, congestive heart failure, major cardiovascular events and end-stage renal disease.

You can read physicians comments on EvidenceUpdates.

This review makes me pounder the question whether ‘experts’ that come with guidelines are ‘why not’ person or ‘do no harm’ person?

I end with author’s conclusions:

Treating patients to lower than standard BP targets, ≤140-160/90-100 mmHg, does not reduce mortality or morbidity. Because guidelines are recommending even lower targets for diabetes mellitus and chronic renal disease, we are currently conducting systematic reviews in those groups of patients.