It has started. My journey to find out how I can lower my blood pressure through a mix of traditional approaches such as exercise an diet as well as a range of more esoteric approaches like beetroot juice and yoga. Vote on what you want him to try and follow his progress.
http://www.bpassoc.org.uk/microsites/Howlowcanmikego/Home
Friday, 15 January 2010
Thursday, 14 January 2010
New York declares war on salt - should it be London next?
The city's Health Department announced on Monday that it is coordinating a nationwide effort to reduce salt in restaurant and packaged foods by 25 percent over five years.
The National Salt Reduction Initiative, a coalition of cities and health organizations, hopes the food industry will back its campaign to combat high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes by voluntarily reducing the sodium in the U.S. food supply.
The announcement met with mixed reaction. Many food makers have already begun to cut salt content and said the reduction targets were reasonable, but some critics called it another attempt to regulate what should be a free choice.
Bloomberg, who has just begun his third term as mayor, has crusaded for healthy living. Apart from the smoking and trans fat bans, the city required chain restaurants to post calorie counts of their menu items and started ad advertising campaign against sugary drinks.
Companies are aware of the push to reduce salt and the New York initiative represents a challenge, said Tom Forte, an analyst at Telsey Advisory Group, an equity research firm.
The restaurant industry will change its offerings if demand is there, but there is "not a lot of proof" previous measures in New York caused any major shifts in consumer behavior, Forte said.
The effort targets restaurants and packaged food because only 11 percent of the sodium in Americans' diets comes from their saltshakers. Nearly 80 percent is added to foods before they are sold, the Health Department said.
High blood pressure, heart attacks and stroke kill 23,000 New Yorkers and 800,000 Americans per year, costing untold billions in healthcare expenses, the Health Department said. Salt intake has been increasing steadily since the 1970s, with Americans consuming about twice the recommended limit of salt each day.
"Consumers can always add salt to food, but they can't take it out," said New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Farley.
But J. Justin Wilson of the Center for Consumer Freedom, an industry-funded group that lobbies against restrictions on smoking, alcohol and the restaurant and food industries, called the initiative "paternalistic" and warned that if the City doesn't get its way, it may try to make the proposals obligatory.
"First it was trans fats, then it was mandatory labeling. The City's Board of Health knows best."
Food manufacturers said the proposals are reasonable and have been a part of their strategy for some time.
"Kraft Foods is supportive of the overall goal of New York City's sodium reduction initiative," said Susan Davidson of Kraft Foods Inc.
The New York City Health Department's Dr. Sonia Angell said the sodium cuts are "not about banning any single product" but making sure the mix of high and low sodium products is balanced so that it packs "a lower wallop of sodium for all of us."
Source: Reuters
The National Salt Reduction Initiative, a coalition of cities and health organizations, hopes the food industry will back its campaign to combat high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes by voluntarily reducing the sodium in the U.S. food supply.
The announcement met with mixed reaction. Many food makers have already begun to cut salt content and said the reduction targets were reasonable, but some critics called it another attempt to regulate what should be a free choice.
Bloomberg, who has just begun his third term as mayor, has crusaded for healthy living. Apart from the smoking and trans fat bans, the city required chain restaurants to post calorie counts of their menu items and started ad advertising campaign against sugary drinks.
Companies are aware of the push to reduce salt and the New York initiative represents a challenge, said Tom Forte, an analyst at Telsey Advisory Group, an equity research firm.
The restaurant industry will change its offerings if demand is there, but there is "not a lot of proof" previous measures in New York caused any major shifts in consumer behavior, Forte said.
The effort targets restaurants and packaged food because only 11 percent of the sodium in Americans' diets comes from their saltshakers. Nearly 80 percent is added to foods before they are sold, the Health Department said.
High blood pressure, heart attacks and stroke kill 23,000 New Yorkers and 800,000 Americans per year, costing untold billions in healthcare expenses, the Health Department said. Salt intake has been increasing steadily since the 1970s, with Americans consuming about twice the recommended limit of salt each day.
"Consumers can always add salt to food, but they can't take it out," said New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Farley.
But J. Justin Wilson of the Center for Consumer Freedom, an industry-funded group that lobbies against restrictions on smoking, alcohol and the restaurant and food industries, called the initiative "paternalistic" and warned that if the City doesn't get its way, it may try to make the proposals obligatory.
"First it was trans fats, then it was mandatory labeling. The City's Board of Health knows best."
Food manufacturers said the proposals are reasonable and have been a part of their strategy for some time.
"Kraft Foods is supportive of the overall goal of New York City's sodium reduction initiative," said Susan Davidson of Kraft Foods Inc.
The New York City Health Department's Dr. Sonia Angell said the sodium cuts are "not about banning any single product" but making sure the mix of high and low sodium products is balanced so that it packs "a lower wallop of sodium for all of us."
Source: Reuters
Having children is good for your blood pressure?
Being a parent can be stressful, but new research calls into question some long-held beliefs about physical and psychological effects of having kids.
A study published today in Annals of Behavioral Medicine finds that parents have better blood pressure readings than childless adults.
"Women were driving the effect," says co-author Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a psychologist at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. "Women with children had the lowest blood pressure, and women without had the highest" of those studied.
Holt-Lunstad, along with researchers from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and California State University-Long Beach, monitored the blood pressure of 198 adults ages 20-68. Participants wore portable monitors, which took random readings three times an hour, multiple times a day, over 24 hours, including while they slept.
The researchers considered other factors that influence blood pressure, such as age, body mass, gender, exercise, employment and smoking. They controlled for length of marriage and duration of marriage before kids. Researchers compared parents with kids under age 2 to parents with teens to parents with kids over 18 and found no differences.
Thomas Kamarck, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh who has researched nighttime blood pressure, says he's not sure about the link to parenthood.
He hasn't yet seen the new study, but he says that "the fact that there's no difference between young children and adult children" suggests that blood pressure readings reflect "something about the people who choose to be parents, rather than the day-to-day experience of being a parent" that may account for the findings.
Holt-Lunstad says researchers need to study parents and other adults over time to see whether parenthood actually does reduce blood pressure.
Source: USA Today
A study published today in Annals of Behavioral Medicine finds that parents have better blood pressure readings than childless adults.
"Women were driving the effect," says co-author Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a psychologist at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. "Women with children had the lowest blood pressure, and women without had the highest" of those studied.
Holt-Lunstad, along with researchers from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and California State University-Long Beach, monitored the blood pressure of 198 adults ages 20-68. Participants wore portable monitors, which took random readings three times an hour, multiple times a day, over 24 hours, including while they slept.
The researchers considered other factors that influence blood pressure, such as age, body mass, gender, exercise, employment and smoking. They controlled for length of marriage and duration of marriage before kids. Researchers compared parents with kids under age 2 to parents with teens to parents with kids over 18 and found no differences.
Thomas Kamarck, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh who has researched nighttime blood pressure, says he's not sure about the link to parenthood.
He hasn't yet seen the new study, but he says that "the fact that there's no difference between young children and adult children" suggests that blood pressure readings reflect "something about the people who choose to be parents, rather than the day-to-day experience of being a parent" that may account for the findings.
Holt-Lunstad says researchers need to study parents and other adults over time to see whether parenthood actually does reduce blood pressure.
Source: USA Today
Dementia in older women linked to hypertension earlier in life
Hypertension may put women at greater risk for dementia later in life by increasing white matter abnormalities in the brain, a new study suggested.
The analysis included 1,403 women aged 65 years or older included in the multicenter, long-term Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study; 883 had been randomized in the conjugated equine estrogen plus medroxyprogesterone acetate study (436 active; 447 placebo) and 520 had been randomized in the conjugated equine estrogens alone study (257 active; 263 placebo).
All participants had their BP assessed annually and underwent brain MRI. Researchers assessed white matter lesions, which are associated with increased risks for dementia and stroke.
Women who were hypertensive at baseline (31%; ≥140 mm Hg/90 mm Hg) had significantly more white matter lesions on their MRI scans eight years later compared with women who had normal BP. Lesions were most common at the frontal lobe than in the occipital, parietal or temporal lobes.
Women taking antihypertensive therapy had greater white matter lesion volumes compared with women not taking antihypertensive therapy (P=.03).
When the researchers repeated the analysis based on late on-trial BP data and antihypertensive medication status, white matter lesion volumes remained significantly related to baseline BP levels for women not taking antihypertensive drugs, but not for women taking antihypertensive drugs.
“Proper control of BP, which remains generally poor, may be very important to prevent dementia as women age,” researcher Lewis Kuller, MD, DrPH, professor of epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, said in a press release. “Women should be encouraged to control high BP when they are young or in middle-age in order to prevent serious problems later on.”
The research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Kuller LH. J Clin Hypertens. 2009;doi:10.1111/j.1751-7176.2009.00234.x.
The analysis included 1,403 women aged 65 years or older included in the multicenter, long-term Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study; 883 had been randomized in the conjugated equine estrogen plus medroxyprogesterone acetate study (436 active; 447 placebo) and 520 had been randomized in the conjugated equine estrogens alone study (257 active; 263 placebo).
All participants had their BP assessed annually and underwent brain MRI. Researchers assessed white matter lesions, which are associated with increased risks for dementia and stroke.
Women who were hypertensive at baseline (31%; ≥140 mm Hg/90 mm Hg) had significantly more white matter lesions on their MRI scans eight years later compared with women who had normal BP. Lesions were most common at the frontal lobe than in the occipital, parietal or temporal lobes.
Women taking antihypertensive therapy had greater white matter lesion volumes compared with women not taking antihypertensive therapy (P=.03).
When the researchers repeated the analysis based on late on-trial BP data and antihypertensive medication status, white matter lesion volumes remained significantly related to baseline BP levels for women not taking antihypertensive drugs, but not for women taking antihypertensive drugs.
“Proper control of BP, which remains generally poor, may be very important to prevent dementia as women age,” researcher Lewis Kuller, MD, DrPH, professor of epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, said in a press release. “Women should be encouraged to control high BP when they are young or in middle-age in order to prevent serious problems later on.”
The research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Kuller LH. J Clin Hypertens. 2009;doi:10.1111/j.1751-7176.2009.00234.x.
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Loss of sleep due to monitoring affects blood pressure patterns
The 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring may interfere with patients' sleep, thus affecting the results of the test, according to a study in Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
"Blood pressure (BP), measured during sleep, correlates better with heart attacks and strokes compared to blood pressure measured in the doctor's office," said Rajiv Agarwal, MD, Indiana University and Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Indianapolis. "However, if blood pressure measurement disturbs sleep, then it may weaken the relationship between 'sleeping BP' and these cardiovascular events."
Agarwal and his data-manager, Robert Light, BS, analyzed the results of 24-hour blood pressure monitoring in 103 patients with kidney disease. This monitoring test is commonly performed to assess variations in blood pressure from daytime to nighttime. Each study participant also wore an actigraph to monitor activity levels.
A lack of the normal nighttime “dip” in blood pressure was related to increased activity levels, because the monitor was disturbing the patients' sleep. On nights when patients were using the blood pressure monitor, they spent an average of 90 minutes less in bed. The study participants also spent less time asleep and slept less efficiently.
"We were measuring activity, sleep, and ambulatory BP for diagnosing masked hypertension and found this interesting observation," said Agarwal.
Patients who awoke at night during blood pressure monitoring were 10 times less likely to have the normal nighttime dip in BP.
"Nighttime blood pressure is lower not because of the time of the day, but because people are asleep," said Agarwal. "The ambulatory monitoring technique can disturb sleep, and therefore raise the nighttime blood pressure as an artifact.”
Agarwal emphasized that sleep quality should be taken into account when interpreting blood pressure during sleep.
"Blood pressure (BP), measured during sleep, correlates better with heart attacks and strokes compared to blood pressure measured in the doctor's office," said Rajiv Agarwal, MD, Indiana University and Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Indianapolis. "However, if blood pressure measurement disturbs sleep, then it may weaken the relationship between 'sleeping BP' and these cardiovascular events."
Agarwal and his data-manager, Robert Light, BS, analyzed the results of 24-hour blood pressure monitoring in 103 patients with kidney disease. This monitoring test is commonly performed to assess variations in blood pressure from daytime to nighttime. Each study participant also wore an actigraph to monitor activity levels.
A lack of the normal nighttime “dip” in blood pressure was related to increased activity levels, because the monitor was disturbing the patients' sleep. On nights when patients were using the blood pressure monitor, they spent an average of 90 minutes less in bed. The study participants also spent less time asleep and slept less efficiently.
"We were measuring activity, sleep, and ambulatory BP for diagnosing masked hypertension and found this interesting observation," said Agarwal.
Patients who awoke at night during blood pressure monitoring were 10 times less likely to have the normal nighttime dip in BP.
"Nighttime blood pressure is lower not because of the time of the day, but because people are asleep," said Agarwal. "The ambulatory monitoring technique can disturb sleep, and therefore raise the nighttime blood pressure as an artifact.”
Agarwal emphasized that sleep quality should be taken into account when interpreting blood pressure during sleep.
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Overweight and middle aged men at risk of earlier death
Overweight middle-aged men may have a higher risk of heart problems and strokes and die earlier than their thinner peers -- even in the absence of some traditional risk factors, a new study suggests.
Some past research has suggested that when obese and overweight adults do not have the so-called metabolic syndrome, their risks of diabetes, heart disease and stroke are no higher than those of normal-weight people.
Metabolic syndrome refers to a collection of risk factors for diabetes and heart problems -- including abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, low levels of "good" HDL cholesterol and high triglycerides (another type of blood fat). It is typically diagnosed when a person has three or more of those conditions.
In the current study, which followed more than 1,700 Swedish men for 30 years, overweight and obese men had increased risks of conditions including heart attack and stroke, even when in the absence of metabolic syndrome.
Among all men without metabolic syndrome, those who were overweight were 52 percent more likely to have heart attacks, strokes, and other complications than normal-weight men were, while obese men had nearly double the risk.
The findings are published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.
"Our study shows that overweight (and) obese men without the metabolic syndrome are at higher risk" for heart disease, stroke, and other related conditions, study leader Dr. Johan Arnlov, of Uppsala University in Sweden, told Reuters Health by email. "This is in contrast to some previous studies that have suggested that obesity in the absence of the metabolic syndrome is a 'healthy' condition."
The study does, however, point up the added threat of having metabolic syndrome.
Obese men with metabolic syndrome had the highest risks -- showing 2.5 times the risk of heart disease and stroke, and related conditions, and of death, during the study period as men who were normal-weight and free of metabolic syndrome at the outset.
In addition, metabolic syndrome was harmful for normal-weight men as well; those with the condition were 63 percent more likely to develop heart disease, stroke, and related conditions than their counterparts who were free of metabolic syndrome.
According to Arnlov, the findings suggest that weight loss should be a goal for heavy men, regardless of whether they have metabolic syndrome. At the same time, being thin does not mean equate to a healthy heart -- though, Arnlov pointed out, metabolic syndrome is much more common among overweight people.
The findings are based on 1,758 men who, at the outset, were 50 years old and free of diabetes and previous hospitalizations for heart disease, stroke, and related conditions. Of the 955 normal-weight men, 64 had metabolic syndrome, as did 125 of 707 overweight men, and 66 of 96 obese men.
Over the next 30 years, 681 men suffered a heart attack, stroke or other major related complication. A total of 845 died.
Heavy men without metabolic syndrome had increased risks of such complications and death even with age, smoking and levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol taken into account.
It is not entirely clear why overweight men were at increased risk, but one issue the study did not address was physical fitness, AHA spokesman Dr. Barry Franklin noted in the news release from the heart association.
He suggested that as a "New Year's resolution," overweight adults recognize that there are health benefits to be gained from shedding even a few pounds through diet changes and exercise.
Arnlov said that future studies should look at whether similar findings are seen in women. However, he added, "I don't think we should consider obesity without the metabolic syndrome to be benign in women just because we don't have the data yet."
SOURCE: Reuters Health / Circulation, online December 28, 2009.
Some past research has suggested that when obese and overweight adults do not have the so-called metabolic syndrome, their risks of diabetes, heart disease and stroke are no higher than those of normal-weight people.
Metabolic syndrome refers to a collection of risk factors for diabetes and heart problems -- including abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, low levels of "good" HDL cholesterol and high triglycerides (another type of blood fat). It is typically diagnosed when a person has three or more of those conditions.
In the current study, which followed more than 1,700 Swedish men for 30 years, overweight and obese men had increased risks of conditions including heart attack and stroke, even when in the absence of metabolic syndrome.
Among all men without metabolic syndrome, those who were overweight were 52 percent more likely to have heart attacks, strokes, and other complications than normal-weight men were, while obese men had nearly double the risk.
The findings are published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.
"Our study shows that overweight (and) obese men without the metabolic syndrome are at higher risk" for heart disease, stroke, and other related conditions, study leader Dr. Johan Arnlov, of Uppsala University in Sweden, told Reuters Health by email. "This is in contrast to some previous studies that have suggested that obesity in the absence of the metabolic syndrome is a 'healthy' condition."
The study does, however, point up the added threat of having metabolic syndrome.
Obese men with metabolic syndrome had the highest risks -- showing 2.5 times the risk of heart disease and stroke, and related conditions, and of death, during the study period as men who were normal-weight and free of metabolic syndrome at the outset.
In addition, metabolic syndrome was harmful for normal-weight men as well; those with the condition were 63 percent more likely to develop heart disease, stroke, and related conditions than their counterparts who were free of metabolic syndrome.
According to Arnlov, the findings suggest that weight loss should be a goal for heavy men, regardless of whether they have metabolic syndrome. At the same time, being thin does not mean equate to a healthy heart -- though, Arnlov pointed out, metabolic syndrome is much more common among overweight people.
The findings are based on 1,758 men who, at the outset, were 50 years old and free of diabetes and previous hospitalizations for heart disease, stroke, and related conditions. Of the 955 normal-weight men, 64 had metabolic syndrome, as did 125 of 707 overweight men, and 66 of 96 obese men.
Over the next 30 years, 681 men suffered a heart attack, stroke or other major related complication. A total of 845 died.
Heavy men without metabolic syndrome had increased risks of such complications and death even with age, smoking and levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol taken into account.
It is not entirely clear why overweight men were at increased risk, but one issue the study did not address was physical fitness, AHA spokesman Dr. Barry Franklin noted in the news release from the heart association.
He suggested that as a "New Year's resolution," overweight adults recognize that there are health benefits to be gained from shedding even a few pounds through diet changes and exercise.
Arnlov said that future studies should look at whether similar findings are seen in women. However, he added, "I don't think we should consider obesity without the metabolic syndrome to be benign in women just because we don't have the data yet."
SOURCE: Reuters Health / Circulation, online December 28, 2009.
Friday, 18 December 2009
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