The new guidelines from the American Heart Association (AHA) / American College of Cardiology (ACC) have sparked debate on the diagnostic criteria and management of arterial hypertension, since they propose radical changes in the definition of hypertension, shifting the values to diagnose blood pressure (BP) from equal to or greater than 140/90 mm Hg to equal to or greater than 130/80 mm Hg. In addition, the new guidelines propose a lower threshold to define adequate control of hypertension, less than 120/80 PA mm Hg. In global terms, this is expected to substantially increase the number of individuals considered hypertensive patients requiring more drugs for adequate control. All of this has led to questioning on the feasibility of the clinical application of these new guidelines, given the tremendous financial implications of prescribing drugs to the millions of new hypertensive patien...

Pregnancy induced hypertension, called preeclampsia (PE) when accompanied by proteinuria, is an alteration that occurs in the second trimester of pregnancy and is characterized by presence of hypertension and proteinuria. Adaptative physiologic changes occur during normal pregnancy including insulin-resistance (IR), hyperlipidemia, hypercoagulability, inflammation, and hyperdynamic circulatory status. Expression of these changes is exaggerated in women developing PE. These alterations are also present in the metabolic syndrome (MS) risk factors cluster, which is in turn a risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). In this review endothelial dysfunction is proposed as a common alteration that explains the presence of these two common diseases in Latin America.