Researchers from the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute have recently revealed that the number of Americans treated for high blood pressure has dramatically increased, which is mainly due to obesity.

Published in the November issue of Hypertension, the study processed data gathered on 30,781 people who had taken part in two National Health and Nutrition Examination surveys, that spread from 1988 to 1994 and from 1999 to 2004, respectively.

Results showed that between the two surveys, the number of hypertension patients had increased from 50.3 percent to 55.5 percent, while the percentage of people suffering from the condition called prehypertension (meaning that they are prone to develop high blood pressure) had gone up from 32.3 to 36.1.

The average age at which blood pressure started to increase was reported to be 60 for men and 40 for women.

The study also found that both the number of people who were aware of their condition and the number of people who had their blood pressure under control had risen since the first National Health and Nutrition Examination survey, especially among black men and women.

Consequently, control rates have been reported to had gone up from 17% to 30% where black men were concerned and an increase in awareness of the disease by 5% was registered, black women accounting for the rise.

Lead researcher Paul Sorlie, chief of the Epidemiology Branch in the above-mentioned institute's Division of Prevention and Population Sciences, has stated that the main prevention method for hypertension was first preventing another condition, namely obesity, which is affecting more and more Americans by the day.