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Posted on Jan 09, 2006, 8 a.m.
By Bill Freeman
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Abnormal levels of total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the "good" cholesterol), non-HDL cholesterol and the ratio between total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol are independently associated with a subsequent increased risk of high blood pressure (hypertension) in men, results of a 14-year study suggest.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Abnormal levels of total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the "good" cholesterol), non-HDL cholesterol and the ratio between total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol are independently associated with a subsequent increased risk of high blood pressure (hypertension) in men, results of a 14-year study suggest.
Reuters Health recently reported a study by Dr. Howard D. Sesso and colleagues at Harvard Medical School in Boston showing that high cholesterol is linked to the development of hypertension in women.
For the current study, to be reported in the medical journal Hypertension, Sesso's team conducted a similar analysis using data from the Physicians' Health Study.
The study included 3,110 male physicians between the ages of 40 and 84 with previous cholesterol measurements and no history of cerebrovascular or cardiovascular disease, including hypertension, and who had not been treated for high cholesterol.
During an average follow-up of 14.1 years, 1,019 of the men developed hypertension. After factoring in the effects of age, body mass index, exercise, smoking, alcohol consumption, parental history of heart attack before age 60, and diabetes, men with the highest levels of total cholesterol had a 23 percent increased risk of hypertension compared with men with the lowest levels.
Those with the highest levels of cholesterol components, excluding HDL, had a 39 percent increased risk compared with men with the lowest levels.
Furthermore, men with the highest ratio of total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol were 54 percent more likely to develop hypertension.
Elevated cholesterol levels seem to precede the onset of hypertension, Sesso's group notes. They suggest that the relationship may be associated with cholesterol abnormalities and that hypertension may be a sign of atherosclerosis, also known as "hardening of the arteries."
"By identifying potential risk factors amenable to intervention, we may eventually be able to reduce the burden of hypertension and subsequent cardiovascular disease," they conclude.
Hypertension, January 2006.
