Blood pressure control and favourable pleiotropic effects of aliskiren

Hypertension and its acute and chronic complications are one of the most important risk factors associated with significant morbidity and mortality worldwide and will increase in importance as a public health problem by 2020.1 The Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC7) establishes that the goal of antihypertensive therapy is to reduce cardiovascular and renal morbidity and mortality. Despite the wide range of antihypertensive agents available, less than one third of patients with hypertension have their blood pressure (BP) controlled.