J Natl Med Assoc
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African Americans are at greater risk for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality than European Americans or Asians. They also bear a disproportionately greater burden from type-2 diabetes mellitus. Not as much access to healthcare and less intensive use of available therapies may explain some of these disparities. ⋯ In addition to lifestyle approaches, achieving aggressive goals for blood pressure (< or =130/80 mmHg) and low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol (<100 mg/dL, or <70 mg/dL for patients at very high cardiovascular risk, including those with diabetes) will necessitate the use of effective pharmacologic therapies. Clinical trial data indicate that antihypertensive regimens, particularly those that include a diuretic, are as effective in African Americans as in other racial/ethnic groups. Moreover, potent statins have been shown to decrease low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol to goal levels in African-American patients.
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To determine associations between home remedy use and self-reported adherence among urban African Americans with poorly controlled hypertension. ⋯ Home remedy use may be a marker of positive self-care for some hypertensive African Americans and not a promoter of nonadherence.
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Idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) is a progressive disorder that usually culminates in right ventricular failure and death without treatment. ⋯ African Americans with IPAH exhibit a substantially increased mortality compared with Caucasians, particularly African-American women.