Blood pressure and mortality in old age. Eleven years' follow-up of a 70-year-old population.

The association between blood pressure levels and mortality up to 11 years has been studied in two representative samples of men and women (1951 people in total) from the longitudinal population study 'seventy-year-old people in Göteborg, Sweden'. We found a significant association between systolic blood pressure (SBP) and mean arterial pressures (MAP) and mortality after 6 years when data from both sexes were pooled. After 11 years, the mortality in the 10% of subjects who had the highest blood pressures at the age of 70 (greater than or equal to 190/105 for men and greater than or equal to 200/105 for women) was 30% higher among the men and 50-60% higher among the women than in the 75% of subjects with the lowest blood pressures. There was no difference between SBP and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) in this respect. A significant association between blood pressure and mortality remained when background factors such as treatment for hypertension, heart failure, coronary heart disease (CHD), diabetes, cholesterol, body mass index (BMI) and smoking habits were kept constant.