More Americans have, get treated for high blood pressure

"First, the bad news: More American adults have hypertension (high blood pressure) and prehypertension than ever before. Now, the good news: The percentage of those getting treated for and controlling high blood pressure has also increased. As a result, even the bad news has a good news aspect: more people are living with rather than dying from hypertension. The bad news–good news portrait of the disease — reported in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association - emerged from an analysis of data from two national health studies. Researchers at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, of the National Institutes of Health, said the nation's obesity epidemic is a major factor in the increased prevalence of hypertension"