However, blood pressure rose in the tropical Pacific, East Africa, and South and Southeast Asia for both sexes, and in West Africa for women in the same period. Female systolic blood pressure was highest in some East and West African countries in 2008, with means of 135 mm Hg or greater – numbers that, the investigators noted, were not unlike those seen in Europe and North America at the beginning of the study period in 1980.
“The decline we have seen is [primarily] in high-income countries and also parts of Latin America, so really we are dividing the world into the high-income nations that are mitigating the effects,” Dr. Ezzati said. “Middle-income countries, such as those in Latin America, have shown that they can do it, too, but in lower-income countries the infrastructure is really absent.”
The good news on blood pressure and cholesterol, he said, should be interpreted with caution. With drug interventions, “we are either mitigating or delaying the effects of obesity – we don't know,” he said.
Dr. Ezzati and colleagues are now working on a diabetes study of similar global scope.
Two researchers reported holding stock in Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.