High blood pressure is redefined as 130, not 140: U.S. guidelines

I'm always a little bit suspicious of moves like this. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I can't help but feel that lowering the levels like this is a move to sell more treatments. Similar to what's happened with cholesterol levels. "High" cholesterol levels have trended downwards over the last 40 years or so to the point where a huge amount of the population is "at risk." Unsurprisingly, statins for lowering cholesterol levels are one of, if not the most prescribed drugs today. I dunno, watching your blood pressure is always a good idea. I'm just a tad skeptical about this.

yes nothing but a ploy so that Big Pharma can sell more drugs.

What a load of horse manure. As others have pointed out, this is a big pharma move to increase sales and profits. Disgusting.

Once a person reaches 130/80, "you've already doubled your risk of cardiovascular complications compared to those with a normal level of blood pressure," said Paul Whelton, lead author of the guidelines published in the American Heart Association journal, Hypertension and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

He said a diagnosis of the new high blood pressure does not necessarily mean a person needs to take medication, but that "it's a yellow light that you need to be lowering your blood pressure, mainly with non-drug approaches."

I strongly suspect that swallowing whatever chemicals they want to give you to push the BP down is worse than then whatever high BP does to you.

Obvious tactic to sell even more pharmaceuticals -- no one is going to fall for it. Most of those medically-related "normal ranges" have been lowered over the years by the medical industry. How much RICHER does Big Pharma need to be??