Study: Some medical terms must be updated

The terms "hypertension" and "microalbuminuria" may be obsolete, say two Boston physicians in the first 2006 issue of the journal Kidney International.

Drs. J.P. Forman and B.M. Brenner of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston discuss the terms that define a large portion of the population as having "normal" levels of blood pressure and albuminuria.

They say blood pressure increased as human stature and environment changed during the last 10,000 years. Blood pressure that doctors today consider "normal" is much higher than what we evolved to tolerate, the scientists said.

Forman and Brenner suggest the medical world should move to terminology that doesn't imply a normal range, and suggest "blood pressure-associated" and "albuminuria-associated" disease replace "hypertension" and "micro-albuminuria."

The researchers say the issue has a broader application in clinical medicine, and the definition of "normal" should be re-evaluated among a variety of other parameters, such as hyperglycemia and obesity.

Copyright 2005 by United Press International