High rates of high blood pressure persist in US Southeast

By Kathryn Doyle NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - One third of U.S. adults have high blood pressure, but in the southeastern part of the country the rate is well over half, according to a new study that finds too little is being done to reverse the problem. The Southeast has been called the Stroke Belt because of well-known high rates of cardiovascular disease, including high blood pressure. "The rates have not changed," though the U.S. has had treatment guidelines for high blood pressure since 1977, said one of the authors, Dr. Uchechukwu K. A. Sampson, an assistant professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. "The number of people who do not know that they have high blood pressure is the same," he added.

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