Salt Study Discounts Link to Hypertension

In a study that seems likely to re-energize the debate over dietary salt, European researchers found that the changes in the amount of sodium excreted in the urine were related to changes in systolic blood pressure.

But they were not linked to diastolic pressure or the risk of developing hypertension, according to Jan Staessen, MD, PhD, of the University of Leuven in Leuven, Belgium, and colleagues.

And levels of urinary sodium excretion were inversely related to the risk of dying of cardiovascular causes, Staessen and colleagues reported in the May 4 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. More

In Hypertension, Strong Men Live Longer

By Todd Neale, Staff Writer, MedPage Today

Hypertensive men with the most muscle strength appear to have a lower risk of dying than their weaker counterparts, researchers found.

Even after controlling for cardiorespiratory fitness level and other potential confounders, men in the upper third of muscle strength were 34% less likely to die during an average follow-up of about 18 years (HR 0.66, 95% CI 0.45 to 0.98), according to Enrique Artero, PhD, of the University of Granada in Spain, and colleagues.

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Bioactive Compounds in Berries Can Reduce High Blood Pressure

Eating blueberries can guard against high blood pressure, according to new research by the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Harvard University.

Blood Pressure Control System Found in Kidney's Structural Units

ScienceDaily (2011-01-14) -- A new finding shows how the million working units in the kidney regulate salt handling. This identifies a new possible therapeutic target for treating high blood pressure.

7 Ways to Ease Into Yoga; Expert Guide to Get Started - AARP Bulletin

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by: Carol Krucoff | from: AARP Bulletin

Have you resolved to exercise and get healthier in the new year? Health and medical experts say you might want to try yoga.

In fact, a 2008 Harris poll of a cross section of 5,000 Americans found that 6.1 percent — which would translate to nearly 14 million adults — say their doctor or therapist recommended yoga to them.

Yoga is an ancient healing practice that has become increasingly popular in our modern, stressful world as a powerful way to stretch and strengthen the body, relax and calm the mind, enhance energy and lift the spirit. Doctors often recommend yoga to people over 50 because it can help lower blood pressure, ease pain and improve balance. But people stick with the ancient practice because they find it improves their mood, reduces stress and, simply put, makes them happier.

Unfortunately, many yoga instructors are not trained to adapt the practice to older bodies. And America's booming interest in yoga has lead to an increase in classes that are called yoga, but are actually "yoga-flavored" exercise classes taught by instructors whose yoga training may be limited to a weekend workshop.

Unless a yoga teacher creates a safe class designed for older adults, this practice meant to heal may cause harm. To safely reap the many benefits of yoga, it's important to understand these seven essential yoga facts: Full Article with Facts & Illustrations

Two Medicines Taken Together Improve Control of Blood Pressure

ScienceDaily (2011-01-12) -- New research shows that starting treatment of blood pressure with two medicines rather than the one produces better and faster results and fewer side effects -- findings that could change clinical practice world-wide.

Get Moving! Exercise can Enhance and Extend Your Life

Regular exercise is essential to healthy aging. It lowers risk factors linked to the development of chronic disease, such as, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and high levels of triglycerides. In turn, physical inactivity has been linked to the development of heart disease and stroke. The American Heart Association (AHA) cites physical inactivity as a major risk factor for developing coronary artery disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) highlights regular physical activity as one of the most important steps to take to prevent serious health problems that can occur with age.

Different activities lead to different health benefits. Some forms of exercise, such as strengthening exercises, improve flexibility and balance. Aerobic exercise increases cardiovascular fitness and endurance. Examples of aerobic activities include brisk walking, bicycling, jogging and dancing. CDC’s guidelines recommend that older adults 65+ who have no limiting health conditions participate in moderate-intense aerobic activities for at least two and a half hours every week. It also recommends including muscle-strengthening exercises, such as, lifting weights, working with resistance bands, heavy gardening, or yoga on two or more days every week. Strengthening exercises can increase a person’s flexibility and balance, which reduce the likelihood and severity of falls.

Recent Exercise Statistics for Adults 65+

Statistics published by CDC in 2009 indicate that older adults in the age range, 65 to 74 years old, exercise more than those 75+. In addition, the statistics indicate that older men exercise more than older women.
The statistics state that 38.5 percent of men, 65 to 74 years old, exercised regularly and 31.1 percent of women in the same age range exercised regularly. The numbers decrease for adults 75+. 23 percent of men 75+ exercised regularly and 14 percent of women 75+ exercised regularly.

Learn More about the Benefits of Exercise

To learn more about the benefits of exercise and tips for incorporating exercise into your life, visit these resources:

• How much physical activity do older adults need? (CDC)
• Physical Activity (AHA)
• Physical Activity for Older Adults: Exercise for Life! (American Society on Aging)
• Exercise for Seniors (Medline Plus)

Patient Monitoring Improves BP Control from MedPage Today

By Kristina Fiore, Staff Writer, MedPage Today

Patients who use telemonitoring to manage their hypertension and titrate their own medication doses see improvements in systolic blood pressure, researchers found.

Such patients saw a significantly greater reduction in mean systolic blood pressure at six months and a year compared with patients who received standard care (P=0.013 and P=0.0004, respectively) Richard J. McManus, FRCGP, of the University of Birmingham in England, and colleagues reported online in The Lancet.

"These findings seem to be the result of an increase in the number of antihypertensive drugs prescribed according to a simple titration plan," they wrote. "Thus, self-management represents an important new addition to the control of hypertension in primary care."

Only about half of patients being treated for hypertension have achieved current recommended levels, which leaves room for other interventions to lower blood pressure, such as patient self-management. Trials of this strategy have shown it to be effective, the researchers noted.

Another strategy is self-titration, in which patients make changes in their medication according to response and based on a pre-agreed formula. This has been tested only on a small scale, the researchers said, but the model has been successful in patients with conditions such as asthma and diabetes.

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Low Vitamin D Linked To The Metabolic Syndrome In Elderly People

from Medical News Today

A new study adds to the mounting evidence that older adults commonly have low vitamin D levels and that vitamin D inadequacy may be a risk factor for the metabolic syndrome, a condition that affects one in four adults. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

"Because the metabolic syndrome increases the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, an adequate vitamin D level in the body might be important in the prevention of these diseases," said study co-author Marelise Eekhoff, MD, PhD, of VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam.

The researchers found a 48 percent prevalence of vitamin D deficiency. The study consisted of a representative sample of the older Dutch population: nearly 1,300 white men and women ages 65 and older.

Nearly 37 percent of the total sample had the metabolic syndrome, a clustering of high blood pressure, abdominal obesity, abnormal cholesterol profile and high blood sugar.

Subjects with blood levels of vitamin D (serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D) lower than 50 nanomoles per liter, considered vitamin D insufficiency, were likelier to have the metabolic syndrome than those whose vitamin D levels exceeded 50. That increased risk especially stemmed from the presence of two risk factors for the metabolic syndrome: low HDL, or "good" cholesterol, and a large waistline.

There was no difference in risk between men and women, the authors noted.

The study included subjects who were participating in the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam. Although the data were from 1995 and 1996, Eekhoff said they expect that vitamin D inadequacy remains prevalent among whites in the Netherlands.
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Fructose Linked to High Blood Pressure from MedPage Today

By Todd Neale, Staff Writer, MedPage Today

People who consume the amount of fructose found in two-and-a-half regular soft drinks a day appear to have a higher risk of hypertension, a cross-sectional study showed.

Consumption of at least 74 grams per day was associated with 26% to 77% greater odds of crossing various thresholds of elevated blood pressure (P<0.05 for all), compared with lower levels of consumption, according to Diana Jalal, MD, of the University of Colorado Denver, and colleagues.

"Limiting fructose intake is readily feasible, and, in light of our results, prospective studies are needed to assess whether decreased intake of fructose from added sugars will reduce the incidence of hypertension and the burden of cardiovascular disease in the U.S. adult population," they wrote online in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

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Women’s Health in California: A Snapshot

A new fact sheet from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research provides a useful overview of some of the biggest health challenges for women in California, including high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, overweight and obesity and cancer screening.

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BP Variation Linked to CVD from MedPage Today

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by Michael Smith, North American Correspondent, MedPage Today

If your blood pressure fluctuates up and down over time, you may be at increased risk of cerebrovascular disease, researchers said.
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Feeling Lonely Increases Blood Pressure For People 50 And Older

(Medical News Today) Chronic feelings of loneliness take a toll on blood pressure over time, causing a marked increase after four years, according to a new study at the University of Chicago.

A new study shows, for the first time, a direct relation between loneliness and larger increases in blood pressure four years later-a link that is independent of age and other factors that could cause blood pressure to rise, including body-mass index, smoking, alcohol use and demographic differences such as race and income.

The researchers also looked at the possibility that depression and stress might account for the increase but found that those factors did not fully explain the increase in blood pressure among lonely people 50 years and older.

"Loneliness behaved as though it is a unique health-risk factor in its own right," wrote researcher Louise Hawkley in an article, "Loneliness Predicts Increased Blood Pressure," published in the current issue of the journal Psychology and Aging.
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BP Variation Predicts Stroke Better than Mean Values - from MedPage Today

By John Gever, Senior Editor, MedPage Today

Blood pressure variability over time, not merely its average level, is a powerful risk factor for stroke, myocardial infarction, and other cardiovascular events, researchers said.

Moreover, some antihypertensive drugs are better than others at controlling blood pressure variability, according to three new reports in the Lancet journals, all by Peter M. Rothwell, MD, PhD, of John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, England, and colleagues.

The researchers reported that:
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Psoriasis Comorbidity Increases over Time - MedPage Today

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By Charles Bankhead, Staff Writer, MedPage Today

Patients with psoriasis have multiple comorbid conditions that tend to worsen over time, data from a review of medical records showed.

At baseline, psoriasis patients had significantly higher rates of hypertension than non-psoriasis controls (14.9% versus 11.9%, P<0.0001), cardiovascular disease (CVD)(3.9% versus 3.1%, P=0.0151), depression (3.7% versus 2.8%, P=0.0077), diabetes (6.3% versus 5.0%, P=0.0471), and hyperlipidemia (15.2% versus 11.5%, P<0.0001).

Psoriasis patients also had a numerically greater prevalence of obesity (0.6% versus 0.2%), and the differences between the two groups increased during four years of follow-up, researchers reported at the American Academy of Dermatology meeting here.

Differences increased the most for depression, hyperlipidemia, and obesity.

"The trends [are] all going directionally in the same way, and the point spread between the groups continues to widen over time," Alexa Kimball, MD, of Harvard, told colleagues.
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Hypertension May Predict Dementia In Older Adults With Certain Cognitive Deficits

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from Medical News Today

High blood pressure appears to predict the progression to dementia in older adults with impaired executive functions (ability to organize thoughts and make decisions) but not in those with memory dysfunction, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
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Hypertension Linked To Dementia In Older Women

Older women with hypertension are at increased risk for developing brain lesions that cause dementia later in life, according to data from the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study (WHIMS). The findings were published in the December 2009 online issue of the Journal of Clinical Hypertension.

The research was conducted as part of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), the largest multi-site longitudinal study looking at health risks among postmenopausal women. WHIMS, which involves a subgroup of the women enrolled in WHI, looks at the influence of hormone therapy on thinking and memory. All the women in WHIMS were 65 or older.

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Did Americans get any healthier over past decade? - washingtonpost.com

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By MIKE STOBBE

About 10 years ago the government set some lofty health goals for the nation to reach by 2010.

So how did we do? By many measures, not so hot. There are more obese Americans than a decade ago, not fewer. We eat more salt and fat, not less. More of us have high blood pressure. More of our children have untreated tooth decay.

But the nation has made at least some progress on many other goals. Vaccination rates improved. Most workplace injuries are down. And deaths rates from stroke, cancer and heart disease are all dropping.

As we move into a new decade, the government is analyzing how well the nation met the 2010 goals and drawing up a new set of goals for 2020 expected to be more numerous and - perhaps - less ambitious.
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High Blood Pressure Treatment For The Over 80s Too Aggressive, Warns Expert

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People over 80 years are being treated too aggressively for high blood pressure, warns an expert in an editorial in BMJ Clinical Evidence this week.

According to Dr James Wright, the latest evidence suggests that less aggressive drug therapy may be more effective at reducing mortality in this age group. Based on this evidence, he suggests clinicians change what they are presently doing and move towards a more conservative approach for people aged over 80.

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Fructose Boosts Blood Pressure, Studies Find - Forbes.com

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Tests in mice and men link sugar to hypertension and say time of day may matter, too.

(HealthDay News) -- America's sweet tooth may be contributing to the ever-increasing number of people with high blood pressure.

Two new studies link fructose, the kind of sugar in soft drinks and many sweetened foods, to high blood pressure, which is a major risk factor for heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases.

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