The updated 2025 American Heart Association guidelines for hypertension allowed 73% of patients to meet treatment-eligibility criteria, compared to 57% under the 2017 guidelines, a study found.
The new guidelines incorporate AHA’s Prevent risk equations and recommended a lower 10-year total CVD risk threshold of 7.5% for medication initiation in stage 1 hypertension.
Researchers studied more than 1 million U.S. adults with confirmed stage 1 hypertension who had visits between Aug. 1, 2024, and July 31, 2025. They compared treatment eligibility at the index date under the 2017 guidelines versus the 2025 guidelines. The findings are published in Epic Research.
Under the new guidelines, 22% more patients become eligible for treatment. This could mean clinicians see substantially more treatment-eligible, stage 1 patients.
However, 6% of patients became ineligible. Newly ineligible patients were disproportionately female (75%) and were age 70 and older (64%).
