High blood pressure (BP) remains a dominant risk factor for cardiovascular disease and death worldwide [1,2]. The progressive decline in the incidence of cardiovascular disease, particularly stroke, which occurred over the past 50 years, has been largely attributed to the progressive reduction of elevated BP levels at population level [3,4]. However, despite the universal consensus on the importance of effective and persistent BP lowering [5,6], the BP targets to achieve with treatment in the clinical practice are still object of debate [7,8].
