Inflammation may have a role in raising blood pressure
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High blood pressure has long been linked to obesity, smoking and family history, but doctors now have compelling evidence that inflammation also may be a contributing factor.
The findings, if confirmed by further research, might help doctors identify people at risk of hypertension before their blood pressure readings start to rise.
Hypertension afflicts about 50 million Americans, many of whom aren’t aware of its health toll.
In addition, the association between inflammation and hypertension opens the door to controlling blood pressure by targeting inflammation. This approach also might lower the incidence of stroke, a major consequence of uncontrolled blood pressure.
A rise in C-reactive protein, or CRP, in the blood is one powerful indicator of inflammation, a condition signifying that the immune system has been activated by infection or autoimmune disease.
The protein may be more than just a marker and play a role in the disease process, but that isn’t clear yet. However, elevated CRP is a proven predictor of heart attack and stroke risk.
In the latest study, researchers measured C-reactive protein in 20,525 healthy participants in the ongoing Women’s Health Study. They monitored the women, who were at least age 45, for nearly eight years to see who would develop blood pressure of at least 140/90, the established cutoff for high blood pressure. During the period, 5,365 women became hypertensive.
Otherwise healthy women (with no cancer or cardiovascular disease) who came into the study with high levels of the protein had a 52% higher risk of developing hypertension, according to research led by Howard D. Sesso, an epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. The study appears in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Assn.
In an interview, Sesso said he and the study’s senior author, Dr. Paul M. Ridker, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at Brigham and Women’s, don’t know the mechanism by which inflammation elevates blood pressure. But some studies suggest that elevated CRP indicates that blood vessels already are damaged.
Blood-pressure elevations in people who still seem healthy might be useful for identifying those “who have diseased vessels and are already on the way toward developing hypertension,” Sesso said.
The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Assn., Pharmacia Corp. and three foundations.