AHA Scientific Sessions 2026 AbstractNov 12, 2026, 00:14 GMT

Tighter blood pressure control has net benefit in kidney disease

Compared with standard control, intensive control lowered cardiovascular risk by 2.06 percentage points but raised adverse-event risk by 1.49 points over a median 3.4 years.

Paper by Yufei Ji, Sifei Chen, Qirui Song, Xinyi Peng, Jun Cai · Beijing Anzhen Hospital

Heart cross-sections show an intact dark blue-green heart beside a scarred gray heart, with more damaged kidney tissue above the intact heart.

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Interventions

Studied:: Meta-analysis of 12,151 patients with chronic kidney disease and hypertension, median 3.4 years
What changed:: Benefits outweighed harms with intensive versus standard blood pressure control (net benefit 1.58)
The catch:: Net benefit depended on preset weights assigned to benefits and harms
In the record:: The 64th paper on intensive blood pressure control with results in people; 85 on record in all.

Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News

Paper

The 12,151 people with chronic kidney disease and high blood pressure averaged 67 years old; 5,530 were women and 6,621 were men. Researchers pooled individual participant data from six multicenter randomized controlled trials comparing intensive with standard blood pressure control.

Over a median 3.4 years, intensive control reduced the combined risk of heart attack, stroke, heart failure or death from heart or blood vessel disease by 2.06 percentage points. Heart failure means the heart cannot pump blood as well as needed. Intensive control increased the risk of adverse events by 1.49 percentage points. The researchers used preset weights to compare benefits with harms. That calculation favored intensive control, including when they weighed cardiovascular benefits against kidney-related adverse events.

Why it matters

For older people with chronic kidney disease, the analysis informs the choice of blood pressure goals that balance cardiovascular health against treatment harms.

Caveats

The net-benefit result depended on the preset weights assigned to benefits and harms. The findings concern people with both chronic kidney disease and high blood pressure, not those without kidney disease.