Turns out I was right about the US being more aggessive about treating high blood pressure. In fact, a few years ago the US invented the word "prehypertensive" in their bp guidelines, to describe the range that in the UK is still known as "high normal". I wonder what impact this has on what I would call a patient's consent to be medicalized. Doesn't hurt with the ACE-inhibitor sales targets I'm sure. Take 2000 people in this range, tell 1000 of them their bp is "high normal" and tell the other 1000 they are "prehypertensive", then ask each of them if they'd like blood pressure medication. I wonder if the same percentage in each group would say yes.
I also wonder why stop there? Let's call systolic bp of 120-129 "pre-prehypertensive", and sub-120 "early onset possible pre-prehypertensive". Let's call low BMIs "pre-obese". No hardware in your arteries? "Pre-stented". My normal-functioning kidneys are operating in pre-failure mode, and I feel pretty good, in other words, pre-fluish. Can I get some tamiflu?
i wonder what percentage of the population would begin to worry when their doctor tells them, "you're predisposed to mortality."
ReplyDeleteand the verification word is: undies
i don't know if that's more hilarious from a "pants" perspective of from a zombie/mortality perspective.