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This week on Health Watch, we're talking about early intervention. We already know that lowering high blood pressure can help prevent dangerous complications. Now researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas say treating people who have borderline high blood pressure can help reduce their developing high blood pressure later.

Doctors already recommend that people at risk for high blood pressure make changes in their lifestyle, such as exercising more, losing weight and reducing salt intake. But Dr. Shawna Nesbitt, a UT Southwestern blood pressure expert, says people tend not to stick with these changes, so they go on to develop high blood pressure. In her study, some patients were also given low doses of medication. Even two years after stopping the medication, those patients had a more than 15 percent lower risk for developing high blood pressure than those who weren't treated.

 

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^April 2006

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