Over 500,000 deaths a year could be prevented by managing blood pressure
Over 500,000 deaths a year could be prevented by managing blood pressure
James McIntoshFri, October 16, 2026 at 11:08 AM UTC
0
Over 500,000 deaths a year could be prevented by treating hypertension, new research finds. Mayur Kakade/ Getty ImagesThis article originally appeared onMedical News TodayResearch has found that hundreds of thousand of deaths a year could be prevented through appropriate blood pressure management, cholesterol and blood sugar management, and colon cancer screenings. -
Analysis of data from 20 countries suggests that improved preventive care for hypertension could prevent over 500,000 deaths a year from cardiovascular disease.
Improved cholesterol and blood sugar management could also prevent a total of nearly 650,000 deaths annually.
An increase in screening for colon cancer would prevent over 200,000 deaths a year.
Preliminary research suggests that effectively controlling high blood pressure (hypertension) could save more than 518,000 lives a year.
This finding comes after researchers performed a modeling analysis of health data for 20 countries that had the highest deaths from noncommunicable diseases.
Noncommunicable diseases are the cause of around three out of five deaths worldwide, and cardiovascular disease is behind more of these deaths than other chronic conditions like diabetes or cancer.
The analysis aimed to estimate how many lives could be saved through increasing the delivery of six specific forms of preventive medicine:
management of high blood pressure
management of high cholesterol with statins
management of high blood sugar in people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes
colon cancer screening
breast cancer screening
cervical cancer screening.
The research was presented at the American Heart Association’s Hypertension Scientific Sessions 2026 in Arlington, VA. The findings are yet to undergo peer review.
High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is a major contributor to deaths from cardiovascular disease worldwide.
Without treatment, it can damage blood vessels and narrow the inside of arteries, leaving them susceptible to blockage. Over time, this can increase the risk of serious conditions, such as coronary heart disease.
“Previous research has confirmed that following the evidence-based recommendations in the latest guideline can reduce the risk of death from high blood pressure and also reduce the risk of other serious conditions, such as heart failure, stroke, and dementia,” said Daniel W. Jones, MD, FAHA, who was not involved in the study, in a press release.
What did the researchers look at?
“In this study, we analyzed existing data to assess if expanding use of non-communicable disease preventive healthcare services across 20 countries worldwide could reduce cardiovascular death,” explained study author Scott Pilla, MD, MHS, in the press release.
The countries were a mixture of upper- and lower-middle income countries.
The researchers assessed the use of the preventive services against major guidelines, looking at health targets and the number of people who might be eligible to receive the services.
For instance, the target for blood pressure management was a level of less than 140/90 millimeters of mercury (mmHg), and adults aged 45 to 75 were eligible for colon cancer screening.
The researchers calculated what the outcomes might be each year if the levels of preventive care were increased from their current levels until they were provided to approximately 80% of eligible patients.
Expanding hypertension treatment ‘prevented the most deaths’
“We found that expanding treatment of high blood pressure to more people prevented the most deaths, followed by more broad use of statin medications for high cholesterol and managing blood sugar in people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes,” said Pilla.
The researchers found that around one in five adults with high blood pressure had their blood pressure under control and lower than 140/90 mmHg.
Increasing preventive care from 20% to 80% was estimated to prevent 518,476 deaths from cardiovascular disease each year.
Advertisement
Elsewhere, increasing statin use for cholesterol management from 16% to 80% of cases would prevent an estimated 340,682 deaths, and improving glucose control in diabetes would prevent an estimated 309,520 deaths.
With cancer screening, increasing colon cancer screening prevented the most deaths. A rise from 14% to 80% would prevent an estimated 206,767 cancer deaths.
Room for improvement
The study shows that there is a lot of scope for patients to receive more preventive care.
The researcher found that the following percentages of patients were receiving the recommended levels of care:
patients with hypertension who had controlled blood pressure — 20%
patients with high cholesterol receiving statins — 16%
patients with diabetes with blood sugar at recommended levels — 39%
eligible patients undergoing recommended colon cancer screening — 14-26%.
“While there were substantial gaps in the use of preventive healthcare services for these conditions in all countries, lower-middle-income countries had large opportunities for improvement, with low rates of hypertension control and high cholesterol management and minimal use of cancer screening tests,” said Pilla.
While this analysis shines a helpful light on areas where clinicians can look to improve outcomes, it does not provide any suggestions on how access to important preventive care can be expanded.
Future research will be needed to find effective ways to bridge these gaps, as well as to explore what the need is in countries with different levels of income.
Around 73% of deaths from noncommunicable diseases occur in low- or middle-income countries, and low-income countries were not represented by the analysis.
In the meantime, it is clear from these findings how important the management of high blood pressure can be.
“Treatment of high blood pressure to goal leads to longer lives and also healthier lives,” said Jones. “This study should inspire clinicians and patients to give more attention to appropriate management of high blood pressure using both lifestyle measures and medication.”
Barriers to care
Medical News Today asked Opel Baker, MBChB, general practitioner at the Mayfield Clinic, who was not involved in the study, what he thought the main barriers to preventive care might be.
“I think one of the biggest barriers to preventive care is that people often don’t feel unwell, so they don’t see the urgency of getting checked,” Baker told us. “Hypertension is a classic example because it can develop silently for years, without obvious symptoms, while increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke.
“From a patient’s perspective, it is easy to put a blood pressure check or routine health appointment at the bottom of the list when nothing feels wrong,” he said.
MNT also spoke to Nissi Suppogu, MD, a board-certified cardiologist and Medical Director of the Women’s Heart Center at MemorialCare Heart & Vascular Institute at Long Beach Medical Center in Long Beach, CA, who was likewise not involved with the study.
Suppogu agreed that a lack of symptoms was a key issue. “Other barriers include the cost of healthcare, limited access to providers, and difficulty maintaining healthy habits,” she added.
Baker said that clinicians had a significant part to play in making preventive care more accessible, identifying people at risk and helping them understand why early intervention matters:
“Ultimately, prevention needs to feel manageable, not overwhelming. Small, consistent steps, like checking blood pressure regularly, staying active, and making realistic dietary changes, can make a meaningful difference. The challenge is making these steps part of everyday healthcare, not something people think about only when a problem develops.”
View the original article on Medical News Today
Source: “AOL Breaking”
