Smoking around your kindergartner could raise their blood pressure

ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2011) — If you smoke around your children, they could have high blood pressure or be headed in an unhealthy direction before learning their ABC's, according to research reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

The study is the first to show that breathing tobacco smoke increases the blood pressure of children as young as 4 or 5 years old.

"The prevention of adult diseases like stroke or heart attack begins during childhood," said Giacomo D. Simonetti, M.D., first author of the study at the University of Heidelberg in Germany and currently assistant professor of pediatrics at the Children's Hospital of the University of Berne in Switzerland. "Parental smoking is not only negative for children's lung function, but poses a risk for their future cardiovascular health."

In an extension of a standard school health exam, 4,236 kindergarten boys and girls (average age 5.7) in the German district that includes Heidelberg had their blood pressure measured. Of parents reporting they smoked, 28.5 percent were fathers, 20.7 percent mothers and 11.9 percent were both parents.

Children with a smoking parent were 21 percent more likely to have systolic blood pressure (the top number in a reading, measured as the heart contracts) in the highest 15 percent, even after adjusting for other heart disease risk factors, such as birth weight, body mass index, and hypertension in the parents.

"Passive smoking increased the risk of having blood pressure at the upper end of normal, and some of these children already had high blood pressure," Simonetti said.

After correcting for other risk factors -- having parents with high blood pressure, being born prematurely or at a low birth weight, being overweight or obese -- blood pressures were significantly higher in the children of smoking parents.

The impact was greater for systolic blood pressure (average increase 1.0 mm Hg) than diastolic blood pressure (average increase 0.5 mm Hg), the lower number in a reading measured when the heart rests between beats.

"Smoking adds to other risk factors," Simonetti said. "Average blood pressure increased in proportion to the cumulative number of risk factors present."

Smoking by mothers had a larger impact than fathers smoking, probably because more of their smoking was done in the home while fathers smoked more at their workplaces, researchers said.

Smoke exposure is likely to have a similar impact on blood pressure in children in the United States, the researchers said.

"Childhood blood pressure consistently tracks into adult life," Simonetti said. "Removing any avoidable risk factors as soon as possible will help reduce the risk for heart disease later on and improve the long-term health of children."

The study findings suggest that encouraging strictly smoke-free environments, specifically at home, may help preserve cardiovascular health not only in adults but also in children, researchers said.

Co-authors are: Rainer Schwertz, M.D.; Martin Klett, M.D.; Georg F. Hoffman, M.D.; Franz Schaefer, M.D.; and Elke Wühl, M.D. Author disclosures are on the manuscript.

The Manfred-Lautenschläger Stiftung, Reimann-Dubbers-Stiftung, Dietmar-Hopp-Stiftung and the Swiss Society of Hypertension AstraZeneca scholarship funded the study.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by American Heart Association.

Journal Reference:

Giacomo D. Simonetti, Rainer Schwertz, Martin Klett, Georg F. Hoffmann, Franz Schaefer, and Elke Wühl. Determinants of Blood Pressure in Preschool Children: The Role of Parental Smoking. Circulation, 2011; DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.110.958769

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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Can A Fat Free Diet Actually Raise High Blood Pressure?

Everyone knows the role that sodium and fat plays in contributing to high blood pressure and the market place has responded with all sorts of "healthy" fat free, reduced fat, low sodium and no sodium food products. Just one little problem. Most of those foods include high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as an additive.

A recent University of Colorado study revealed that HFCS can increase blood pressure by up to 32%. This common food additive tends to inflame blood vessels causing them to stiffen and making them less elastic. This loss of elasticity causes a higher blood pressure particularly systolic pressure. Healthy blood vessels expand when the heart pumps and then contract after the blood surge passes. By stiffening the vessels, the aperture of the blood vessels is narrower causing an increase of systolic pressure.

And the bad news gets worse

The bad news is that HFCS is found in almost all processed foods. The really bad news is that it is found in higher doses in low fat and no fat products. Food processors add the extra HFCS to compensate for the taste lost by removing the fat.

And it gets worse. High-fructose corn syrup can go by a number of different names. If the label on your food says it has corn syrup, fructose, high fructose sweetener or natural sweetener as an additive it's really HFCS.

Sweetener is everywhere

So how do you avoid this harmful additive? Realistically it's nearly impossible. What you can do is cut down on your consumption by adding more fresh food or food that is labeled 100% organic to your family's diet.

The HFCS issue is just the latest in a continuing line of questionable business practices by the food processing and packaging industry. Knowing that there are big bucks in eating healthy led to the introduction of a myriad of no salt and no fat products along with the zero calorie sodas. Yes, fat and sodium are decreased and in its place is a substance that is potentially just as dangerous.

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Common hypertension drugs can raise blood pressure in certain patients

ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2010) — AlbCommonly prescribed drugs used to lower blood pressure can actually have the opposite effect -- raising blood pressure in a statistically significant percentage of patients. A new study by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University suggests that doctors could avoid this problem -- and select drugs most suitable for their patients -- by measuring blood levels of the enzyme renin through a blood test that is becoming more widely available.

The study appears in the online edition of the American Journal of Hypertension.

"Our findings suggest that physicians should use renin levels to predict the most appropriate first drug for treating patients with hypertension," says lead author Michael Alderman, M.D., professor of epidemiology & population health and of medicine at Einstein. "This would increase the likelihood of achieving blood pressure control and reduce the need for patients to take additional antihypertensive medications."

The study involved 945 patients who were enrolled in a workplace antihypertensive treatment program in New York City from 1981 to 1998. All had a systolic blood pressure (SBP) of at least 140 mmHg. SBP, the top number in the blood pressure reading, represents the amount of force that blood exerts on the walls of blood vessels when the heart contracts. No patients were receiving treatment for high blood pressure before enrolling in the study.

The patients were given a single antihypertensive medication, either a diuretic or a calcium channel blocker (so-called "V" drugs, which lower blood volume) or a beta blocker or an ACE inhibitor ("R" drugs, which lower levels of renin, an enzyme secreted by the kidneys that plays a key role in maintaining blood pressure).

Plasma renin activity (PRA) and SBP were measured at enrollment, and SBP was measured again after one to three months of treatment. The renin level predicted those patients who were most likely to have a favorable response with either an R or a V drug. In addition, for both R and V drugs, the renin test was able to identify those patients most likely to experience a "pressor response" -- a clinically significant increase in SBP of 10 mmHg or more.

Overall, 7.7 percent of the patients exhibited a pressor response. The highest percentage of pressor responses -- 16 percent -- occurred in patients with low renin levels who were given a beta blocker or an ACE inhibitor (R drugs).

"Every clinician knows that there's a variation in response to antihypertensive treatment, and that some patients will have an elevation in blood pressure," says Dr. Alderman, a former president of the American Society of Hypertension. "The latter phenomenon is generally attributed to patients' failure to take their medications or to a random event. But these data show that it's not a random event -- it's due to a mismatch between the patients' renin status and the drug. We think it makes sense to use renin to predict the most appropriate treatment."

Dr. Alderman says that two groups of patients might especially benefit from having their renin levels measured: patients being prescribed antihypertensive drugs for the first time and patients who are taking multiple antihypertensive drugs when one or two might work just as well. "With renin testing, you will more often get blood pressure under control with less therapy," he adds.

PRA testing has long been used to help determine the underlying cause of a patient's hypertension (i.e. whether it's due to constricted blood vessels or too much blood volume, or both), which can help guide therapy. "The problem was that the test was expensive and difficult to perform accurately," says Dr. Alderman. "However, the methodology for measuring PRA is getting better and the test is becoming more widely available."

In an accompanying editorial, Morris J. Brown, M.D., professor of clinical pharmacology at the University of Cambridge School of Medicine in England, wrote, "The role of renin measurement may be to detect the extremes, and to reach rational treatment in those not controlled by standard combination [drug therapy]. Many hormones are measured on rather less reason and evidence than plasma renin, the 'oldest' of them all; its place in routine management of hypertension has at last arrived."

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Albert Einstein College of Medicine, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Journal Reference:

Alderman et al. Pressor Responses to Antihypertensive Drug Types. American Journal of Hypertension, 2010; DOI: 10.1038/ajh.2010.114

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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Heavy drinking may raise abnormal heart rhythm risk

Toby Melville  /  REUTERS Bar Manager Nicolas de Soto mixes a Calvados-based cocktail at ECC in Chinatown, London December 3, 2010. REUTERS/Toby Melville Reuters

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