Why yo-yo blood pressure may be a stroke warning

Doctors are missing signs that people are at risk of stroke because they are ignoring ‘yo-yo’ blood pressure readings

Doctors are missing signs that people are at risk of stroke because they are ignoring ‘yo-yo’ blood pressure readings, experts have warned.

A study has found that blood pressure readings that are occasionally high may be a more accurate indicator of stroke risk than those which are consistently high.

Traditionally, GPs only consider sustained high blood pressure as a sign that someone is at risk of heart disease or stroke. Occasional high readings are usually ignored as an aberration.

But the latest research has shown that practice could be misleading. Sharp variations may also be used to spot signs of future heart problems, it is believed.

There are also signs that betablockers – taken by thousands of people deemed at risk of stroke – may increase this dangerous variation.

The findings, published in The Lancet, could have major implications for the prevention of strokes and heart attacks.

Experts say clinical guidelines should now be reviewed. Some 150,000 Britons a year suffer a stroke.

Researchers looked at how blood pressure variability affected stroke risk in four groups of participants in previous trials, each including more than 2,000 patients. All had experienced a ‘mini-stroke’, or transient ischaemic attack (TIA).

 

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Patients with the most variation in systolic blood pressure – measured with each ‘surge’ of the beating-heart – were six times more likely to have a stroke than those with the least, regardless of their average blood pressure readings.

Professor Peter Rothwell, from the University of Oxford, who led the study, said: ‘We have shown that it is variations in people’s blood pressure rather than the average level that predicts stroke most powerfully.