http://www.health.am/hypertension/ http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/drinking-black-tea-may-cut-blood-pressure/ http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/drinking-black-tea-may-cut-blood-pressure/ People who enjoy drinking black tea throughout the day may get the added benefit of a slight reduction in their blood pressure, suggests a new Australian study. Although the study cannot identify specific components of the tea that might lead to a drop in blood pressure, the researchers said past studies have shown flavonoids, compounds found in many plants such as tea, are good for heart health. “The message really isn’t for an individual to go out and drink a lot of tea,” said Jonathan Hodgson, the study’s lead author and a researcher from the University of Western Australia. He said, instead, the drop is like a bonus. High Blood Pressure news 2012-01-25T23:37:01-08:00 http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/middle-aged-men-with-upper-normal-blood-pressure/ http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/middle-aged-men-with-upper-normal-blood-pressure/ Middle-aged men at the upper end of normal blood pressure had an elevated risk for atrial fibrillation later in life, according to new research in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association. Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common heart rhythm disorder in which irregular heartbeats can lead to stroke and other heart-related complications; it affects over 2.7 million Americans. While hypertension is a risk factor for AF, the health consequences of upper-normal blood pressure are not yet fully understood. “Women with blood pressure on the upper end of the normal range have been shown to be at increased risk for AF,” said Irene Grundvold, M.D., lead author of the study and consultant cardiologist in the Cardiology Department at Oslo University Hospital in Ullevaal, Norway. “We set out to determine if the same was true for men who are not yet considered hypertensive.” For 35 years, researchers followed 40- to 59-year-old healthy Norwegian men from a database of 2,014. They recorded the men’s blood pressure at the start of the study and tracked health events such as AF. They conducted a follow-up survey an average of seven years after the initial survey, in which 1,758 men participated. Beyond seven years, only men who were considered healthy were included in analysis, which reduced the number of participants to 1,423.  High Blood Pressure news 2012-01-18T09:16:00-08:00 http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/pollution-tied-to-disease-risk-in-la-black-women/ http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/pollution-tied-to-disease-risk-in-la-black-women/ In a study of more than 4,000 black women in Los Angeles, those who lived in areas with higher levels of traffic-related air pollution were at increased risk of developing diabetes and high blood pressure. The researchers, led by Patricia Coogan at Boston University, found that black women living in neighborhoods with high levels of nitrogen oxides, pollutants found in traffic exhaust, were 25 percent more likely to develop diabetes and 14 percent more likely to develop hypertension than those living in sections with cleaner air. Previous research has linked air pollution to health problems such as diabetes, stroke, heart disease and even higher rates of death. High Blood Pressure news 2012-01-13T21:38:01-08:00 http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/birth-defects-may-be-linked-to-high-blood-pressure/ http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/birth-defects-may-be-linked-to-high-blood-pressure/ Women who take angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors to treat high blood pressure in the first trimester of their pregnancies are at no greater risk of having babies with birth defects than are women who take other types of high blood pressure medication or who take no blood pressure drugs, according to a new study from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The study suggests that the underlying high blood pressure itself may increase the risk of birth defects, rather than blood pressure medications taken during the first trimester of pregnancy. ACE inhibitors are among the most widely prescribed drugs used to treat high blood pressure, particularly for people who also have diabetes. ACE inhibitors are known to raise the rate of birth defects in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, and one earlier study reported a link between the use of ACE inhibitors and birth defects in the first trimester of pregnancy. But the new AHRQ report, based on a study of a larger population, did not find a unique link between first-trimester ACE inhibitor use and birth defects. Results of the study, prepared for AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program by the HMO Research Network - a member of AHRQ’s Developing Evidence to Improve Decisions about Effectiveness (DEcIDE) Network - are published in the October 18 issue of BMJ.  High Blood Pressure news 2011-10-21T21:05:00-08:00 http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/poor-sleep-quality-increases-risk-of-high-blood-pressure/ http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/poor-sleep-quality-increases-risk-of-high-blood-pressure/ Reduced slow wave sleep (SWS) is a powerful predictor for developing high blood pressure in older men, according to new research in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association. SWS, one of the deeper stages of sleep, is characterized by non-rapid eye movement (non-REM) from which it’s difficult to awaken. It’s represented by relatively slow, synchronized brain waves called delta activity on an electroencephalogram. Researchers from the Outcomes of Sleep Disorders in Older Men Study (MrOs Sleep Study) found that people with the lowest level of SWS had an 80 percent increased risk of developing high blood pressure. “Our study shows for the first time that poor quality sleep, reflected by reduced slow wave sleep, puts individuals at significantly increased risk of developing high blood pressure, and that this effect appears to be independent of the influence of breathing pauses during sleep,” said Susan Redline, M.D., the study’s co-author and Peter C. Farrell Professor of Sleep Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass. High Blood Pressure news 2011-08-29T21:42:00-08:00 http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/pilot-study-suggests-new-approach-to-treat-preeclampsia/ http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/pilot-study-suggests-new-approach-to-treat-preeclampsia/ A novel therapy that reduces elevated blood levels of a potentially toxic protein in women with preeclampsia, a dangerous complication of pregnancy, may someday address the therapeutic dilemma posed by the condition – balancing life-threatening risks to the mother with the dangers that early delivery poses to an immature fetus. In a paper receiving online release in the journal Circulation, a team of U.S. and German researchers report promising results from their pilot study of a filtration technology that reduces reduce excess blood levels of soluble Flt-1, a protein that limits the growth of blood vessels, in women with very preterm preeclampsia. “Introducing new therapies in pregnancy is uncommon because of the need to avoid extra risks to both the mother and baby,” says Ravi Thadhani, MD, MPH, of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Division of Nephrology, co-corresponding author of the report. “In this paper we show that a disease that affects thousands of women around the world may one day be able to be managed by the therapy we developed. This was a small, proof-of-concept study to see if the therapy is safe and possibly effective; so larger, randomized trials now need to be done.” Affecting 5 to 7 percent of pregnancies, preeclampsia is characterized by high blood pressure, protein in the urine and additional metabolic abnormalities. If symptoms progress, it can lead to kidney or liver failure, brain swelling, seizures and death. Since the only way to halt the process is to deliver the fetus, the earlier in a pregnancy preeclampsia occurs the greater the risk to the baby. Very preterm delivery – before 32 weeks of gestation – has been estimated to increase infant mortality as much as 70 times over full-term delivery at 37 or more weeks. Very preterm babies who do survive may face lifelong complications such as cerebral palsy, so finding an intervention that can safely prolong pregnancy is vitally important.  High Blood Pressure news 2011-08-02T19:43:01-08:00 http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/living-with-a-smoker-may-raise-blood-pressure-in-boys/ http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/living-with-a-smoker-may-raise-blood-pressure-in-boys/ Exposure to secondhand smoke, even at extremely low levels, is associated with increased blood pressure in boys, according to new research being presented Sunday, May 1, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Denver. Children with elevated blood pressure are at increased risk of having high blood pressure, or hypertension, as adults. Hypertension is associated with a higher risk of heart and kidney disease and is the third leading contributor to illness and death worldwide. Yet, knowledge of risks factors for elevated blood pressure among children is limited. Studies in non-smoking adults have shown associations between both secondhand smoke and outdoor air pollution with increased blood pressure, but no research has looked at this relationship in children.  High Blood Pressure news 2011-05-02T05:28:00-08:00 http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/vitamin-d-may-help-explain-racial-differences-in-blood-pressure/ http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/vitamin-d-may-help-explain-racial-differences-in-blood-pressure/ High blood pressure, or hypertension, is more common and often more deadly in blacks than in whites, and a new University of Rochester study shows that low vitamin D levels among black people might be a powerful factor that contributes to the racial differences in hypertension. The University of Rochester Medical Center findings, published online today in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, are consistent with growing evidence that lower vitamin D status is associated with higher blood pressure, and that people with darker skin generally produce less vitamin D. “Our study confirms that vitamin D represents one piece of the complex puzzle of race and blood pressure,” said lead author Kevin Fiscella, M.D., professor of Family Medicine at URMC. “And, since black-white differences in blood pressure represent thousands of excess deaths due to heart disease and stroke among blacks, we believe that simple interventions such as taking vitamin D supplements might have a positive impact on racial disparities.” High Blood Pressure news 2011-04-26T18:44:00-08:00 http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/blood-protein-levels-may-predict-risk-of-a-cardiovascular-event/ http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/blood-protein-levels-may-predict-risk-of-a-cardiovascular-event/ Increased levels of a protein that helps regulate the body’s blood pressure may also predict a major cardiovascular event in high-risk patients, according to a study led by St. Michael’s Hospital’s cardiovascular surgeon Subodh Verma. Measuring the amount of the protein, known as plasma renin activity (PRA), in the blood stream may give doctors another tool to assess a patient’s risk and help prevent a heart attack or stroke. “Conventional factors like genetics and environment do not always provide a complete patient story and an understanding of cardiovascular risk,” says Dr. Subodh Verma, senior author, researcher and cardiovascular surgeon at St. Michael’s Hospital. “The plasma renin activity blood marker allows us to identify people at a higher risk and that gives us the opportunity to introduce therapies that would work to lower a patient’s PRA levels.” Published in March in the European Heart Journal, the paper was based on 2,913 Canadian HOPE (Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation) study patients. Patients in the study had stable chronic vascular disease and/or diabetes and one cardiovascular risk factor. High Blood Pressure news 2011-04-08T18:51:01-08:00 http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/redefining-normal-blood-pressure/ http://www.health.am/hypertension/more/redefining-normal-blood-pressure/ Current US definition of ‘normal’ blood pressure may unnecessarily label 100 million Americans as ‘abnormal’ As many as 100 million Americans may currently be misclassified as having abnormal blood pressure, according to Dr. Brent Taylor from the Veterans Affairs Health Care System in Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota and his colleagues. Their findings (1) show that these people are not actually more likely to die prematurely than those with ‘normal’ blood pressure, i.e. below 120/80. Taylor and colleagues’ article in the Journal of General Internal Medicine (2), published by Springer, also shows that in those under 50, diastolic blood pressure* is the more important predictor of mortality, whereas in those over 50, systolic blood pressure* is the stronger predictor. The authors argue it is time to consider a new definition of ‘normal’ blood pressure. Taylor and colleagues examined the independent contribution of diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and systolic blood pressure (SBP) on mortality, as well as how these relationships might affect the number of Americans currently labelled as having abnormal blood pressure.  High Blood Pressure news 2011-03-09T21:23:00-08:00