The World Health Organization defined hypertension as: systolic blood pressure > or equal 160mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure > or equal 95mmHg and border line hypertension as systolic <160 and diastolic pressure 90-94mmHg or systolic 141-159 and diastolic pressure < 90 mmHg. The remainder of the population was considered ‘normotensive’.
Such definitions however are arbitrary because of the continuous nature of the blood pressure distribution. For most cases of hypertension, no underlying clinical case is found on investigation i.e., so called ‘essential’ hypertension. Essential hypertension is type of disease not hitherto recognized in medicine in which the defect is one of degree not of kind, quantitative not qualitative. It is apparently difficult for doctors to understand because it is departure from the ordinary process of binary thought to which they are brought up.Definitions of hypertension are essentially pragmatic. They may be used to characterize groups of individuals that may benefit from specific treatment regimens – no pharmacologic and pharmacologic. For example, the cut points for ‘hypertension’ may be chosen at the level of blood pressure for which evidence of a treatment benefit is supported by data from randomized controlled clinical trials, and benefits of treatment outweighs risk. However these criteria will exclude the large numbers of people at excess risk from their blood pressure levels, but who are at or below the threshold for therapeutic intervention.
Definition of Hypertension
