Middle-aged adults with long-term fluctuations in blood pressure may face a higher risk for sudden cardiac death than their peers with more consistent blood pressure readings, a large new study suggests. The findings , which showed people with the greatest variability in blood pressure faced up to a nearly 70% greater risk for sudden cardiac death than people with the least variability, were recently presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions in Chicago. They are considered preliminary until full results are published in a peer-reviewed journal.
"Blood pressure variability is not just numbers on a chart," said the study's lead researcher, Ritam Patel, a second-year medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. "It's telling us something powerful about this hidden risk that we haven't been able to quantify before. For the millions of people who are measuring their blood pressure, there is incentive to go beyond the numbers and try to maintain stability.
" A large body of research has shown that uncontrolled high blood pressure greatly increases the risk for heart disease, stroke, dementia and other chronic illnesses. As people get older, they are more likely to develop the condition, which affects nearly half of adults in the U.S.
With many people monitoring their blood pressure, researchers have more recently begun to investigate what happens when blood pressure readings fluctuate over time and have found links betwee.
