People search for the signs of high blood pressure expecting a list of symptoms to watch for. The research reviewed here gives a less comfortable answer: high blood pressure often causes no reliable symptoms, and many people with it have never been diagnosed.
The number of adults aged 30–79 living with hypertension worldwide doubled between 1990 and 2019, from 331 million women and 317 million men to 626 million women and 652 million men, even though age-standardised prevalence stayed stable.
Between 1990 and 2019, the number of people aged 30–79 years with hypertension doubled worldwide, from 331 million women and 317 million men to 626 million women and 652 million men.
LDL cholesterol is one of the central numbers on a lipid panel, and its link to cardiovascular disease has been tested in large randomized trials.
Blood pressure is one of the most basic measurements in clinical medicine, but it can tell us a surprising amount. I measure it frequently in my own practice, whether as part of a routine health assessment or early in the evaluation when a patient has symptoms or a condition that may involve haemodynamic changes.
Many athletic patients assume that training hard automatically means having healthy cholesterol levels. In reality, the picture is considerably more nuanced — and, from a clinical perspective, much more interesting.
In clinical practice, one of the standard pieces of advice for patients with metabolic syndrome is, of course, to improve diet and increase physical activity.
In clinical practice, I often interpret triglycerides in athletes through a familiar principle: when we want to improve a patient’s lipid profile, regular exercise is one of the first lifestyle tools we recommend, usually alongside a healthier dietary pattern.
In cholesterol discussions, the older public narrative was often simplified into the idea that all cholesterol was bad. Today, many patients are at least aware of the distinction between “good” and “bad” cholesterol — usually meaning HDL cholesterol and LDL cholesterol.
