Published in IJCP January 2019
Expert's View
How Important a Risk Factor is Systolic Blood Pressure?
January 14, 2019 | KK Aggarwal
     


It has been shown in cross-sectional and longitudinal population studies that systolic blood pressure (SBP) increases with age, while diastolic blood pressure (DBP) rises until 50 years of age and then levels off or even slightly decreases. Consequently, with increasing age, there is a shift from diastolic pressure to systolic pressure and then to pulse pressure as the predominant predictor of cardiovascular risk.1