High blood pressure: How common is it?
How common is high blood pressure (hypertension)?
Currently, about 35 million people in Germany (just under 44 percent) are affected by high blood pressure. This figure applies to all citizens from birth onward. However, the group under 20 years old can be excluded from the calculation, since high blood pressure is currently rare at that age.
If you exclude those under 20 and look only at Germans over 20, well over 50 percent would be patients with high blood pressure.
The older people get, the more of them have elevated blood pressure. Up to around age 60 it affects more men than women. Past age 60 this relationship reverses: the number of women with higher blood pressure then exceeds the number of hypertensive men.
High blood pressure by age and sex
| Age |
Women |
Men |
| 18 - 29 years |
1,3 % |
8,4 % |
| 30 - 39 years |
4,8 % |
11,4 % |
| 40 - 49 years |
17,2 % |
26,2 % |
| 50 - 59 years |
34,6 % |
41,7 % |
| 60 - 69 years |
60,7 % |
58,8 % |
| 70 - 79 years |
74,7 % |
73,6 % |
The threshold values for high blood pressure have repeatedly been a topic of discussion in recent years. In the United States the thresholds were drastically lowered. That led to a sudden jump in the number of people now classified as hypertensive. In much of Europe, the older thresholds are still used. However, some changes have been made especially for people under 65.
We have of course followed this discussion. In our article "Blood Pressure Normal Values" we describe in detail how the thresholds for high blood pressure have developed over the past years.
Sources:
This article comes from BloodPressureDB – the leading app since 2011 that helps hundreds of thousands monitor their blood pressure every day.
Our content is based on carefully researched, evidence-based data and is continuously updated (as of 10/2024).
