Feel like you're on a high wire for your health?

Photo by Morgan via Flickr

During a discussion of the health care of my mother in the last few years of her life, a smart doctor told us that as someone ages, much of health care becomes a balancing act.

Or maybe it's not just about aging, but blood pressure in any age. Check out recent research about how blood pressure control can cut stroke risk but might result in trade-offs

And the rate of all cardiovascular events, including heart attack, stroke, and cardiovascular death, was 25 percent lower in the group that received aggressive treatment: 243 events in those 4,678 patients, compared with 319 events in the 4,683 that got less medicine.

Still, caution is warranted, given that the extra medicine was tied to an increase in fainting and kidney problems, said Phillip Koren, medical director of the Cooper Heart Institute in Camden.

"There is clearly a benefit in those outcomes, but it comes with a price," said Koren, who was not involved in the study. "That price is potentially significant."