Hypertension is a gateway to stroke, heart attack, heart
failure, and kidney disease. Probably because of its
interference with health, on average the life span of people
with hypertension is five years shorter than that of people with
normal blood pressure. Hypertension directly leads to 60,000
deaths a year and contributes to another 300,000 deaths. Quite
naturally, if you’re working to control it, you’re burdened with
concerns. You must reprogram your eating and exercise habits and
begin a regimen of one or more pills a day, pills which may be
expensive. Spanish researchers uncovered another hidden burden
associated with high blood pressure: its effect on survival
after both admission and readmission to hospitals. Over a
10-month period, they studied 1,007 men and women admitted to a
hospital for any heart-related problem, including chest pain,
fainting, heart attack, heart failure, atrial fibrillation and
pericarditis. In this group of patients, 69% had pre-existing
hypertension before being admitted. At