The 2007 Canadian Hypertension Education Program recommendations: the scientific summary - an annual update.

The present paper summarizes and highlights key messages of the 2007 Canadian Hypertension Education Program recommendations for the management and diagnosis of hypertension. This is the eighth annual update. Important new messages in the 2007 Canadian Hypertension Education Program recommendations emphasize the need for assessing adults with high normal blood pressure on an annual basis and reducing sodium in the diet of Canadians to less than 100 mmol/day. These new recommendations still need to be incorporated into the older but still important considerations for the diagnosis, management and treatment of patients with hypertension, namely, assessing blood pressure in all adults at all appropriate visits, expediting the diagnosis of hypertension, assessing and managing global cardiovascular risk, emphasizing that lifestyle modifications are the cornerstone of antihypertensive therapy, treating to target to achieve optimum cardiovascular risk reduction, using combinations of antihypertensive medications and lifestyle to achieve recommended targets and focusing on adherence to therapy. Minor changes in pharmacological therapies and some new recommendations on routine laboratory tests are discussed.