History of Overdiagnosis(2): Iranian Late Professor Feridoun Attari, M.D. and definition of hypertension

 The theme of 2013 World Health Day is related to controlling blood pressure:  

 

http://www.who.int/campaigns/world-health-day/2013/en/index.html

I highly appreciate WHO's concerns about prevention and treatment of hypertension.  Even so controlling of hypertension can prevent stroke, heart failure and kidney disease but patients with mild hypertension may not benefit from the treatment of hypertension (See Jeanne Lenzer's essay in Slate magazine about the study of  Cochrane Collaboration).  Late Professor Feridoun Attari, M.D. ( see the photo) was a well respected/old hand internist of our university.  He believed that the definition of hypertension should be according to the age of the individuals.  Also physicians who define hypertension should not have any conflict of interests.  

I think a major problem in the diagnosis of hypertension is BINARY DIAGNOSIS: 

                       Having or not having hypertension

 This problem is not limited to diagnosis of hypertension.  There are several other diseases and risk factors of diseases that are defined as YES/NO.  Andrew J. Vickers, PhD and his colleagues address this problem in their very interesting essay: 

       http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=742079

Prof. Paul Glasziou has a suggestion about prevention of overdiagnosis and underdiagnosis of hypertension:

http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2012/11/05/paul-glasziou-should-we-abandon-the-term-hypertension