Those side effects include headaches, dizziness, fatigue, leg swelling and falls, he said.Īnd in addition to side effects from the antihypertension drugs, doctors need to keep an eye on drug-drug interactions, Bryan said, because elderly patients are often on a number of medicines. And all these medications have side effects.'

'But it makes patients feel better when it's higher and they can take fewer pills and medications. 'From the older population I see, we try so hard with so many medications to get it perfectly controlled,' he said. Adam Scher of Cypress Internal Medicine in Greer said the guidelines were changed because there were no proven benefits from the stricter limits and more adverse effects when patients were more aggressively treated. They will have higher pressures to be able to move more blood, and that's a good thing.'Īnd internist Dr. 'I don't know if we've ever seen long-term benefits from very low blood pressure in patients over 60,' she said. That can affect quality of life, she said, and cause falls, which can mean dangerous hip fractures among other injuries. It can cause a lot weakness and dizziness.' Adding more and more medications, and driving their cystolic pressure down makes the diastolic (bottom) number way too low for them. 'They get calcified arteries, so it's harder to get blood pressure control overall. 'For quite a while, the goal, especially for older patients, has been much too low,' she said. Andrea Bryan of Carolina Cardiology Consultants with Greenville Health System said the new guideline for the top, or cystolic number, is good news. The American Heart Association advocates that health care providers continue to follow the 140/90 guideline, saying there's not enough evidence to justify such 'a major change.'īut Dr. 'But many experts fear that increasing blood pressure levels in these adults could be harmful.' 'These adults would be eligible for less intensive blood pressure medication under the new guidelines, particularly if they were experiencing side effects,' she said. One in four adults in the over-60 group is on hypertension drugs to meet the old guidelines, according to the researchers from Duke Clinical Research Institute, who collaborated with McGill University researchers.Īccording to the study, 13.5 million adults - most over 60 - would no longer be classified as having poorly controlled blood pressure, including 5.8 million who would no longer need blood pressure pills under the new guidelines, lead author Ann Marie Navar-Boggan, a cardiology fellow at Duke University School of Medicine, told The Greenville News. While everyone agrees that hypertension can lead to strokes, heart disease and kidney disease, just how low blood pressure levels should be to reduce the risk is controversial.

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