Blood pressure and incidence of twelve cardiovascular diseases: lifetime risks, healthy life-years lost, and age-specific associations in 1·25 million people

The associations of blood pressure with the different manifestations of incident cardiovascular disease in a contemporary population have not been compared. In this study, we aimed to analyse the associations of blood pressure with 12 different presentations of cardiovascular disease.

We used linked electronic health records from 1997 to 2010 in the CALIBER (CArdiovascular research using LInked Bespoke studies and Electronic health Records) programme to assemble a cohort of 1·25 million patients, 30 years of age or older and initially free from cardiovascular disease, a fifth of whom received blood pressure-lowering treatments. We studied the heterogeneity in the age-specific associations of clinically measured blood pressure with 12 acute and chronic cardiovascular diseases, and estimated the lifetime risks (up to 95 years of age) and cardiovascular disease-free life-years lost adjusted for other risk factors at index ages 30, 60, and 80 years. This study is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01164371.