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For >30 years,1,2 there has been controversy regarding
the clinical significance of low diastolic blood pressure
(DBP) in patients treated for hypertension because it relates to
increased cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in general and to
coronary heart disease (CHD) risk in particular. This has not
been studied in those with pre-existing CVD, a population with
greater risk than those without initial events. Therefore, in the
present study, we limited our investigation to persons who survived
an initial CVD event—CHD, heart failure (HF), or stroke.
We divided these persons into 2 groups: (1) those with isolated
systolic hypertension (ISH; systolic blood pressure [SBP] ≥140
and DBP