THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 17, 1995 TAG: 9501170301
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
Doctors may be losing the battle to control high blood pressure, as stroke deaths begin to rise after a 20-year decline, a study shows.
Dr. Russell Luepker of the University of Minnesota said the disturbing trend could be explained by a drop he found in the use of blood pressure medication. High blood pressure leads to strokes, heart attacks and other ailments.
Luepker tracked three groups of 4,000 to 7,000 people each from Minnesota's mostly white, middle-class population since 1980 and found that while the national campaign to control high blood pressure produced a dramatic drop in deaths during the past two decades, the curve appears to be turning up.
The same thing is probably happening across the country, although federal figures, which are not as detailed as Luepker's, have not shown the trend as clearly.
``The national trend is behind ours, and now they're beginning to catch up,'' Luepker said Sunday at the American Heart Association's annual meeting for reporters.
The decline in the use of blood pressure medication probably reflects two things, Luepker said. One is that controlling blood pressure is no longer at the top of the national health agenda, as it was for much of the past 20 years. The second is that the price of blood pressure drugs has shot up dramatically.
Some of the newest drugs cost as much as $1.50 per pill, which must be taken once or twice a day. Patients paid only 1 1/2 cents per pill for older drugs.
Many factors affect the nation's heart disease death rates, such as diet and exercise. But Luepker looked at death rates from strokes, which are less affected by those other factors and directly related to high blood pressure.
He found that the decline in stroke-related deaths had leveled off and appeared to be on the rise. Luepker plans another survey this year to assess that rise.
Among men, the stroke death rate dropped from about 100 per 100,000 people in the mid-1970s to about 40 in the mid-1980s, where it leveled off, Luepker said. Among women, the death rate was about 60 per 100,000 in the mid-1970s, and it fell to fewer than 30 in the mid-'80s.
A blood pressure of 120 over 80 is considered normal. In the United States, high blood pressure is generally defined as anything more than 140 over 90, Luepker said.
KEYWORDS: STUDY STROKE by CNB