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The VA Co-operative Studies; The First RCTs in Cardiovascular Disease – A Tribute to Edward D. Freis

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Management of Hypertension

Abstract

The relationship between elevated blood pressure and premature death was first demonstrated from data collected by insurance companies in the 1920s [1], and the association continued to be strengthened by data from the same source accumulated over the next 3 decades. The beneficial effects of blood pressure reduction however, remained controversial till the mid 1950s because of the luck of effective therapies and the fear of harming vital organs and actually increasing cardiovascular events with lower pressures [2]. Thus therapeutic nihilism prevailed for a long time.

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Correspondence to Vasilios Papademetriou .

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Papademetriou, V., Doumas, M., Tsioufis, C., Dimitriadis, K., Faselis, C. (2019). The VA Co-operative Studies; The First RCTs in Cardiovascular Disease – A Tribute to Edward D. Freis. In: Papademetriou, V., Andreadis, E., Geladari, C. (eds) Management of Hypertension. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92946-0_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92946-0_4

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