A new study of heart disease patients finds that "normal" blood pressure may not be low enough. By reducing their pressure well below the levels suggested by national guidelines, patients had fewer heart attacks, strokes, cardiac arrests, hospitalizations for chest pain, procedures to open blocked coronary arteries, and deaths.

In addition, lower blood pressure appeared to slow or stop the growth of the fatty deposits called plaque in the coronary arteries, compared with patients taking a placebo, whose plaque growth continued over the two-year study.

The international study, led by Dr. Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic, is being published today in The Journal of the American Medical Association. It found that for every 16 heart disease patients with normal blood pressure given drugs to lower it, 1 adverse event could be prevented.

Although the study was modest in size, with 1,991 patients, all with normal blood pressure, experts said its surprising result reopened this longstanding question: How low should blood pressure go?

The question takes on special urgency because millions of Americans have heart disease severe enough to cause the adverse symptoms.

Read more...