white men and women, even after adjusting for other differences, he added.
“Prevention, awareness, treatment, and control of high blood pressure is essential, as cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular events, disability, hospitalizations and financial hardship,” Fonarow explained.
For the study, Thomas and his colleagues collected data on nearly 3,900 young adults who were part of a heart disease risk study.
The participants were enrolled in the study when they were 18 to 30 years old, and they didn’t have high blood pressure at the time.
High blood pressure is defined as a systolic pressure (the upper number) of 130 mm Hg or higher and a diastolic pressure (the lower number) of 80 mm Hg or higher.
These blood pressure benchmarks were first released in 2017, replacing the previous definition of high blood pressure of 140/90 mm Hg.
This lower threshold for defining high blood pressure means even more Americans will be diagnosed with high blood pressure at younger ages, Thomas said.
Excess weight was the biggest risk factor for developing high blood pressure, regardless of sex or race, the researchers found.
Blacks and whites who kept to a