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 Even young adult blood pressure readings near the upper range of
what’s considered normal were linked to weakness in the heart’s
ability to pump blood in middle age, suggesting that preventing
hypertension early could stave off heart failure, researchers say.
“Our findings provide further support for the importance of good
risk factor control early in life,” said senior author Dr. Joao A.C.
Lima of the cardiology division at Johns Hopkins University School
of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.
“Many participants were not hypertensive at the beginning of the
study; however, chronic exposure to higher blood pressure, even
within what is considered the normal range, is associated with
cardiac dysfunction 25 years later,” he said in a news release.
Beginning in 1985, the researchers began following 2,479 men and
women between ages 18 and 30, assessing their blood pressure seven
times over the next 25 years. They estimated “cumulative blood
pressure exposure” by multiplying their systolic blood pressure
(when the heart is contracting) and diastolic blood pressure
(between beats) at each of the seven time points by the year in
which they were measured.
Healthy adult blood pressure should be less than 120 millimeters of
Mercury systolic over 80 mm Hg diastolic. High blood pressure is
diagnosed at 140/90 mmHg or more.
At the end of the study the researchers used echocardiographs to
observe the shape and function of the participants’ hearts. By age
50, 135 of the participants had left ventricle dysfunction, in which
the heart was markedly weaker at pumping blood to the body, during
beats or between beats.
Those who had higher blood pressure readings in their younger years,
between 120/80 to 139/89 before age 30, were more likely to have
left ventricular dysfunction between heartbeats than those with
lower blood pressure, as reported in the Journal of the American
College of Cardiology.
Diastolic blood pressure was more closely tied to diastolic
dysfunction than was systolic blood pressure.
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Other risk factors in childhood, like parental smoking, have also
been associated with adult vascular disease, so blood pressure may
be as well, said Dr. Thomas H. Marwick of the Menzies Institute for
Medical Research at the University of Tasmania in Australia and
author of an editorial comment accompanying the study.
Over time, high blood pressure in the arteries causes thickening and
scarring which makes it harder for the heart to pump blood, and can
lead to heart failure, he said.
But it is not clear how long a young person has to have elevated
blood pressure to increase their risk of heart issues later, Marwick
told Reuters Health by email.
About three percent of people younger than age 18 years have high
blood pressure, including 30 percent of kids who are obese, he said.
High blood pressure gets more common with older age, increasing to
65 percent of people over age 60.
“In children (high blood pressure) should elicit a careful hunt for
secondary causes – especially kidney disease, endocrine and vascular
problems,” Marwick said.
“Weight management, control of salt intake and physical activity are
important lifestyle interventions that are important across the
population,” to decrease the risk of elevated blood pressure, he
said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1GteoDu and http://bit.ly/1LriiT5 Journal of
the American College of Cardiology, online June 22, 2015.
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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