Quite clearly, age and other risk factors play an important role in defining absolute levels of cardiovascular risk. While smoking, diabetes, hypercholesterolaemia and microalbuminuria might increase one’s cardiovascular risk two or three fold, at any level of blood pressure, but cardiovascular risk may increase ten fold or more between the ages of thirty and seventy. However, in addition to age and other recognised cardiovascular risk factors, there are certain features of a subject with hypertension that define additional cardiovascular risk.