August 15, 2025- Preventing and managing high blood pressure with healthy lifestyle behaviors, such as following a heart-healthy diet including reducing salt intake, staying physically active, maintaining a healthy weight and managing stress—combined with early treatment with medication to lower blood pressure if necessary—are recommended to reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, heart failure, kidney disease, cognitive decline and dementia, according to a new clinical guideline published on August 14 in the American Heart Association’s peer-reviewed journals Circulation and Hypertension, and in JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology.
The “2025 AHA / ACC / AANP / AAPA / ABC / ACCP / ACPM / AGS / AMA / ASPC / NMA / PCNA / SGIM Guideline for the Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Management of High Blood Pressure in Adults” replaces the 2017 guideline and includes new or updated recommendations for blood pressure management based on the latest scientific evidence to achieve the best health outcomes for patients.
The new guideline reflects several major changes since 2017, including use of the American Heart Association’s PREVENTTM (Predicting Risk of cardiovascular disease EVENTs) risk calculator to estimate cardiovascular disease risk. It also provides updated guidance on medication options, including the early treatment for high blood pressure to reduce the risk of cognitive decline and dementia; use of specific medications including the possible addition of newer therapies such as GLP-1 medications for some patients with high blood pressure and overweight or obesity, and recommendations for managing high blood pressure before, during and after pregnancy.