Re: High cholesterol may raise blood pressure-study

Blocked wrote:
>
> High cholesterol may raise blood pressure-study
>
> Rueters News
> Dec 12, 2005
>
> By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
>
> People with high cholesterol also have a greater risk of high blood
> pressure, U.S. researchers reported on Monday in one of the first
> studies to demonstrate that one may cause the other.
>
> A study of 3,000 men monitored for 14 years showed that those who
> developed the unhealthiest cholesterol levels raised their risk of
> hypertension by 39 percent.
>
> "There appears to be a significant association between increased
> cholesterol levels and the risk of developing hypertension in healthy,
> middle-aged men," said Howard Sesso, an epidemiologist at Brigham and
> Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.
>
> "We looked at this same exact question in a study published a month ago
> ... in women. We found the same thing," Sesso said in a telephone
> interview.
>
> While both conditions lead to heart disease, the No. 1 killer of
> Americans and people in many other developed nations, Sesso said few
> researchers had looked at whether high cholesterol could actually cause
> high blood pressure.
>
> He believes that the damage cholesterol causes to the walls of arteries
> makes them less elastic, leading to high blood pressure. "Our findings
> suggest we may have a new means of preventing hypertension, a
> devastating public heath issue in this country," he said.
>
> As many as 90 percent of U.S. adults with normal blood pressure at age
> 55 may develop hypertension in their lifetime, according to the
> American Heart Association.
>
> Unhealthy blood cholesterol is trickier to calculate as it involves
> several different readings -- high total cholesterol, high levels of
> low density lipoprotein or "bad" cholesterol and low levels of high
> density lipoprotein or "good" cholesterol.
>
> But the American Heart Association says nearly 107 million American
> adults have total blood cholesterol values of more than 200, considered
> the highest desirable level.
>
> SIMILAR RISK FACTORS
>
> The risk factors for high blood pressure and high cholesterol are
> similar -- a diet rich in fat, low in whole grains, fruits and
> vegetables and a lack of exercise.
>
> Sesso's team started with more than 3,000 men taking part in a larger
> study called the Physician's Health Study. At the beginning all had
> healthy blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
>
> Over the average of 14 years of follow-up, a third of the men developed
> high blood pressure, the researchers reported in the latest issue of
> the journal Hypertension.
>
> Men with the worst levels of bad cholesterol had a 54 percent higher
> risk of high blood pressure compared to the mean with the healthiest
> levels.
>
> Men with the highest levels of total cholesterol were 23 percent more
> likely to develop hypertension than men with the lowest levels. But men
> with the highest HDL or "good" cholesterol levels had a 32 percent
> lower risk of high blood pressure than those with the lowest HDL
> levels.

Association is not causality.

Would be more than happy to "glow" and chat about this and other things
like cardiology, diabetes and nutrition that interest those following
this thread here during the next on-line chat (12/15/05) from 6 to 7 pm
EST:

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For those who are put off by the signature, my advance apologies for how
the LORD has reshaped me:

http://tinyurl.com/bgfqt

Many Christmas blessings,

Andrew
http://tinyurl.com/b6xwk


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