Incremental Benefits and Harms of the 2017 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association High Blood Pressure Guideline

The recent recommendations from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) to lower the thresholds for defining hypertension and for treating higher-risk patients¹ have been controversial. For example, the Clinical Guidelines Committee of the American College of Physicians (ACP) argued that the changes are “not supported by evidence and may result in low-value care,”² and the American Academy for Family Physicians (AAFP) raised concerns that the “harms of treating a patient to a lower blood pressure (BP) were not assessed.”³ The Table summarizes key differences between the ACC/AHA guideline and prior guidelines.^6,7