- You've done a lot of research on the blood pressure goals for hypertension treatment in people with diabetes, obesity, and hypertension. What is different with treatment goals in hypertension in a setting of obesity? It's very interesting because, if you would've asked me three years ago, I would say that in diabetic patients you have to go to 130 / 80 [blood pressure goals], but for general population [blood pressure treatment goals] 140 / 90 is good enough. Now that we have the SPRINT study, and this study was done in non-diabetic subjects, and they showed clearly that 120 / 80 is much better than 140 / 90 and that's why the American Heart Association suggests blood pressure therapy goal of 130 / 80. They also define now hypertension [differently]

- if you have blood pressures above 130 over 80, you are hypertensive. so in the past there was a clear difference between the target of blood pressure treatment in diabetic and non-diabetic patients: in diabetic patients with hypertension we wanted blood pressure 130 over 80 and in non-diabetic hypertension we targeted 140 over 90. Nowadays it's the same [goal]. Now you have to go to the same blood pressure goal in diabetics and non diabetics, which should be less than 130, or at least close to 130 / 80. In diabetic patients you see definitely much lower events rate [stroke, heart attack] when you lower the blood pressure to 130 over 80.