New guidelines on diagnosing high blood pressure could mean thousands more people benefiting from treatment in England and Wales.
Health bosses say offering blood-pressure-lowering drugs to more people with stage-1 hypertension would help to cut heart attacks and strokes.
In total, about 450,000 men and 270,000 women could now qualify for the drugs.
But some GPs expressed concerns about over-diagnosis, saying the benefits could be limited.
And they said lifestyle factors, such as weight control, diet and exercise, all had an important role to play in bringing down blood pressure.
At present, people with high blood pressure – a reading of 140/90mmHg or higher in clinic – are offered treatment if they have a 20% risk of cardiovascular disease over 10 years and are aged under 80..
The draft guidelines, announced by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), recommend that people with a 10% risk should now qualify.
This assessment score is based on a blood test several risk factors, including:
smoking
obesity
alcohol
age
sex
family history
NICE said it was difficult to predict the impact of lowering the threshold because some people in this group may already be taking blood-pressure-lowering drugs.
The long-term plan for the NHS in England contains a commitment to diagnosing high blood pressure earlier and saving lives from heart attacks and strokes.
High blood pressure affects more than one in four adults in England, accounts for more than one in 10 visits to GPs and contributes to 75,000 deaths every year – but millions of people are thought to go undiagnosed.
