Healthy Skepticism Library item: 18624

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Moynihan R.
Who benefits from treating prehypertension?
BMJ 2010 Aug 24; 341:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/341/aug24_2/c4442

Abstract:

When health authorities in the United States were developing new guidelines for the treatment of hypertension in 2003, they decided to create a new diagnostic category. The new category would not be used to diagnose sick people; rather it would label those people whose blood pressure was towards the upper reaches of normal. The problem was what to call this new entity: should it be borderline blood pressure, high normal, or perhaps prehypertension? That’s when market research came to the rescue. “We did focus groups to solidify which one would resonate most with the public,” says George Bakris, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and a member of the committee that described the new entity. “Prehypertension was a clear winner so we went with that.”

The 2003 guidelines made clear that prehypertension was “not a disease category.“1 Rather it was a new classification for people with normal systolic . .