Never too old to lower bloof pressure

Doctors are trained mainly on younger patients and have little training to cope with older ones. Now from a study at Imperial College, London we learn that lowering the blood pressure of elderly patients could cut their total mortality by a fifth and their rate of cardiovascular events by a third, according to a new study presented today at the American College of Cardiology in Chicago. In the largest ever clinical trial to look at the effects of lowering blood pressure solely in those aged 80 and over, Benefits of treatment include a 21 percent reduction in total mortality rate, a 39 percent reduction in stroke mortality rate, a 64 percent reduction in fatal and non-fatal heart failures and a 34 percent reduction in cardiovascular events. The benefits were apparent within the first year of follow-up.