2-arm blood pressure check indicator for risk from heart disease or death
• Severe Hypertension News • Jan 30 12
A systematic review and meta-analysis carried out by researchers at the University of Exeter Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry (PCMD) has found that…    

Swimming lowers older adults’ blood pressure
• Severe Hypertension News • Jan 24 12
Many older adults like to take a dip a pool, and now a small study suggests it can be good for their blood pressure.…    

Hypertension in Pregnant Women
• Severe Hypertension News • Jan 22 12
Hypertension in pregnancy involves a significant risk to both mother and baby. Although the incidence of eclampsia is falling, hypertension in pregnancy still results…    

Pre-Hypertension Still Raises Heart Risk in Men
• Severe Hypertension News • Jan 20 12
Pre-hypertensive middle-aged men may have more to worry about than developing full-blown high blood pressure. They also are at an increased risk for a…    

Canada’s first renal denervation procedure to reduce high blood pressure performed today
• Severe Hypertension News • Jan 18 12
Doctors at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre today performed a minimally invasive surgical procedure to treat high blood pressure, called renal denervation, for the…    

Expectant mothers on antidepressants risk newborns with high blood pressure
• Severe Hypertension News • Jan 13 12
Mothers who take anti-depressants during pregnancy are more likely to give birth to children with persistent pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure in the lungs)…    

Blood pressure control: Now or later?
• Severe Hypertension News • Jan 09 12
Confronted with a high blood pressure value in a diabetic patient, most doctors would treat aggressively with medications. According to new research, however, delaying…    

Young women may reduce heart disease risk eating fish with omega 3 fatty acids
• Severe Hypertension News • Dec 06 11
Young women may reduce their risk of developing cardiovascular disease simply by eating more fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids, researchers reported in Hypertension:…    

New Formula Developed to Reassure Patients About Low Heart Attack Risk
• Severe Hypertension News • Nov 16 11
If your doctor says you have a negative stress test, or that your cholesterol or blood pressure are normal, how assured can you be that you??™re not likely to have a heart attack in the next seven to 10 years? Assessing traditional risk factors, such as age, high blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking and family history can estimate a person??™s risk, but the picture is not always clear-cut. Some newer tests can be offered to provide reassurance or guidance about the need for medications or further testing.

Michael Blaha, M.D., M.P.H, from the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease, has developed a simple mathematical formula to help doctors calculate their patients??™ risks based on a variety of tests, such as a blood test for C-reactive protein, carotid ultrasound and coronary calcium scoring, which are not part of the usual menu of risk factors. The goal was to determine which test, if results were normal, would provide the most reassurance for patients.

The study shows that by far, a test that looks for coronary calcium is the best indicator of low risk compared with other tests. Blaha will present the results of the study, ???Comparing Zero Coronary Artery Calcium with Other Negative Risk Factors for Coronary Heart Disease,??? at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions, on Nov. 15, 2011, at 2:30 p.m.    

Blood pressure and stroke risk gets more complicated
• Severe Hypertension News • Nov 15 11
For patients who have suffered an ischemic stroke, traditional treatment prescribes keeping subsequent blood pressure levels as low as possible to reduce the risk…    

When blood pressure refuses to go down
• Severe Hypertension News • Nov 11 11
Five to 15 percent of all patients with hypertension fail to respond to drug treatment. However, a range of treatment options are now available in these cases. Alongside the established measures stand new and promising interventions such as renal sympathetic denervation. Felix Mahfoud, Frank Himmel and their co-authors present the current treatment strategies for resistant arterial hypertension in the latest issue of Deutsches ?„rzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2011; 108(43): 725).

A multimodal interdisciplinary strategy is necessary for the successful treatment of resistant arterial hypertension. Drug treatment must be tailored to the individual patient, and reversible or secondary causes of hypertension must be systematically sought and treated. The important non-pharmacological conservative treatment measures include optimization of weight, a low-salt diet, physical exercise, and abstinence from alcohol.

Minimally invasive renal denervation and baroreceptor stimulation are two alternative treatment options for selected patients with resistant arterial hypertension.    

Breakthrough in understanding the genetics of high blood pressure
• Severe Hypertension News • Nov 09 11
A researcher from the University of Leicester’s Department of Cardiovascular Sciences has been involved in a ground-breaking study into the causes of high blood pressure.

The study, published in the academic journal Hypertension, analysed genetic material in human kidneys in a search for genes that might contribute to high blood pressure. The findings open up new avenues for future investigation into the causes of high blood pressure in humans.

The study identified key genes, messenger RNAs and micro RNAs present in the kidneys that may contribute to human hypertension. It also uncovered two microRNAs that contribute to the regulation of renin ??“ a hormone long thought to play to part in controlling blood pressure.     

Breastfeeding tied to lower blood pressure risk
• Severe Hypertension News • Nov 02 11
Mothers who breastfeed for the recommended amount of time may have a somewhat lower risk of developing high blood pressure later on, new research…    

Double duty for blood pressure drugs: how they could revolutionize how we treat valve disease
• Severe Hypertension News • Oct 25 11
??“ A type of medication known as angiotensin-receptor blockers could reduce risk of mortality in people with a heart disease called calcific aortic stenosis (AS) by 30 per cent over an eight-year period, Heart and Stroke Foundation researcher Dr. Philippe Pibarot told delegates at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress. The condition is currently managed with open heart surgery.

“Our discovery shifts how we think about AS by looking at a new pathway which both prevents and reverses calcification,” says Dr. Pibarot, a professor at Laval University and Canada Research Chair in Valvular Heart Diseases, Qu?©bec Heart & Lung Institute. “It broadens how we can approach therapies, opening up new avenues of research, and has tremendous potential to lead to a major discovery.”

From a health economics point of view, drug treatment is also far less expensive than replacing a valve through surgery, which Dr. Pibarot says costs at least $30,000.

Every year, AS is responsible for 10,000 to 15,000 deaths in North America, and upwards of 80,000 heart surgeries. Now, this promising research suggests the first possible drug therapy to treat AS.     

Blood pressure-lowering drug after stroke aids recovery, study finds
• Severe Hypertension News • Oct 21 11
A commonly prescribed blood pressure-lowering medication appears to kick start recovery in the unaffected brain hemisphere after a stroke by boosting blood vessel growth,…    

Kidney damage and high blood pressure
• Severe Hypertension News • Sep 22 11
The kidney performs several vital functions. It filters blood, removes waste products from the body, balances the body’s fluids, and releases hormones that regulate…    

Genetic Factors Behind High Blood Pressure
• Severe Hypertension News • Sep 21 11
High blood pressure is a well-known risk factor for heart disease. Researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have participated…    

‘White-coat effect’ elevates greyhounds’ blood pressure
• Severe Hypertension News • Sep 07 11
The “white-coat effect” is not reserved for only the human patients who see their blood pressure rise in response to the stress of a…    

Lack of Deep Sleep Tied to Hypertension
• Severe Hypertension News • Sep 01 11
Men who get the least deep sleep each night have a higher risk of hypertension, new research shows.

Earlier studies have tied chronic sleep disorders and low levels of sleep to greater risks of heart disease and obesity, and even reduced life span. But the new study, published in the journal Hypertension, is one of the first to find that it??™s not just how much you sleep, but the the quality of your nightly slumber that can affect your risk for high blood pressure.

The goal of the study, carried out by researchers at Harvard Medical School and elsewhere, was to look specifically at the slow-wave stages of sleep, which make up about 90 minutes to two hours of a normal night??™s rest and represent the deepest hours of sleep. To study the effect of deep sleep on health, the scientists followed 784 healthy men who were part of an ongoing sleep study and did not have signs of high blood pressure at the start of the research. During the three-and-a-half year study, the men had their blood pressure checked at various times, and their levels of slow-wave sleep were monitored at home by a machine.    

Potatoes Can Reduce Blood Pressure
• Severe Hypertension News • Sep 01 11
Just a couple of servings of potato a day can reduce blood pressure in obese or overweight people with high blood pressure, calling into…    

Cardiologists Examine Alternatives To Halt High Blood Pressure
• Severe Hypertension News • Aug 31 11
More and more, patients show up to appointments with hypertension expert John Bisognano, M.D., Ph.D. carrying bags full of “natural” products that they hope…    

Differences in cell response could explain higher rates of hypertension in African-Americans
• Severe Hypertension News • Aug 29 11
A key difference in the way that cells from African-Americans respond to inflammation could be an answer to why this group is disproportionately affected by hypertension, something that has eluded scientists for many years.

In a study published this month in Vascular Health and Risk Management, lead author Michael Brown and his team tested the effects of TNF-?¬, a protein that causes inflammation when cells are damaged, on endothelial cells ??“ which line blood vessels ??“ in both African-Americans and Caucasians, to determine whether the inflammation affected the cells differently.

Among African-American cells, there was a nearly 90 percent increase in the production of endothelial microparticles, small vesicles that are released during inflammation. Individuals with hypertension have been shown to have higher levels of these microparticles in their bloodstream. Among Caucasians, there was only an eight percent increase in their production.    

Hypertension study prompts new diagnosis guidance
• Severe Hypertension News • Aug 24 11
Taking repeated blood pressure readings over a 24-hour period rather than a one-off measurement in the clinic is the most cost-effective way of deciding…    

Fructose consumption increases risk factors for heart disease
• Severe Hypertension News • Jul 28 11
A recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM) found that adults who consumed high fructose…    

New Study Suggests Link Between Chronic Estrogen Exposure and High Blood Pressure
• Severe Hypertension News • May 26 11
For many years doctors believed the estrogen women consumed in the form of oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) pills was good for their patients??™ hearts. Recent studies however have shown that long-term exposure to estrogen can be a danger to women as it has been associated with high blood pressure, a key link to heart- and brain-attacks (strokes). Although the process by which estrogen induces high blood pressure in females is unclear, Michigan State University (MSU) researchers have found that long-term estrogen exposure generates excessive levels of a compound, superoxide, which causes stress in the body. The build-up of this compound occurs in an area of the brain that is crucial to regulating blood pressure, suggesting that chronic estrogen induces a build up of superoxide that in turn causes blood pressure to increase. The study also found that the anti-oxidant resveratrol reverses the increase in both superoxide and blood pressure.

The study is entitled Chronic Estradiol-17?? Exposure Increases Superoxide Production in the Rostral Ventrolateral Medulla (RVLM) and Causes Hypertension: Reversal by Resveratrol.??? It appears in the Articles in PresS section of the American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative, and Comparative Physiology, published by the American Physiological Society.     

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