An analysis of the 2015 SPRINT trial has found that, if participants continued taking their antihypertensive medications for the remainder of their lives, intensive blood pressure control could add between six months and three years to their lifespan. The effect was most pronounced in patients who started intensive BP control at a younger age.
SPRINT (Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial) enrolled more than 9,000 adults, all 50 years of age or older. Patients were at a high risk for CVD but didn’t have diabetes, and baseline systolic blood pressure ranged between 130 mmHg and 180 mmHg. People were randomized to intensive BP therapy (a target of 120 mmHg or less) or standard therapy (a target of 140 mmHg or less), and the study’s investigators concluded that, over time, reducing BP lower than normal targets could reduce overall death rates by 27% for adults at an increased risk for heart trouble.
Muthiah Vaduganathan, MD, MPH, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and lead author of the present study, said physicians were enthused when they heard about the SPRINT results, but it was a different picture for patients.
“When physicians discuss optimizing blood pressure, patients often wonder what benefits they may anticipate with intensive blood pressure control,” Vaduganathan said in a release. “That was the inspiration for our work: We’ve taken the data and reframed it to contextualize the results in a way that’s most meaningful to patients.”
Vaduganathan’s team applied age-based methods to SPRINT data to estimate the long-term benefits of both intensive and standard BP control. They found that if patients continued to take their antihypertensives for the rest of their lives, those randomized to the intensive target could add six months to three years to their life expectancy compared to those randomized to the standard target. Results seemed to depend on age, with the best results found in people who started intensive BP control around age 50 (2.9 added years) and the poorest results found in people who began the intervention around 80 (9 added months).
“Our hope is that these findings offer a more easily communicated message when discussing the potential benefits and risks of sustained blood pressure control over time,” Vaduganathan said. “These statistics about life expectancy may be more tangible and personalized for patients and more relatable when making these decisions.”
The team’s analysis didn’t account for potential risks that have been associated with intensive BP control, including kidney injury and low blood pressure.
After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.