Stories about: hypertension

Mitigating blood vessel damage from heart attack, stroke

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Mouse hearts showing the impact of a therapeutic protein fusion on blood vessel health
Imaging of mouse hearts reveals widespread tissue damage (light-colored areas) after heart attack. At far right, however, mice that were treated with an engineered, optimized ApoM protein containing S1P have better tissue recovery than untreated mice (left) and mice that were given an inactive “dud” ApoM treatment (center). Credit: Hla lab/Boston Children’s Hospital

The average human has 60,000 miles of blood vessels coursing through their body. There are a number of mechanisms the body uses to keep that vast vascular network healthy, including a tiny fat molecule, a lipid called S1P, that plays a particularly important role.

S1P receptors dot the surface of the endothelium, a layer of cells that line the inside of all the body’s blood cells. Together, these so-called endothelial cells form a barrier between the body’s circulating blood and surrounding tissue. When S1P molecules activate their receptors, it suppresses endothelial inflammation and generally helps regulate cardiovascular health.

Now, researchers led by Timothy Hla, PhD, from the Boston Children’s Hospital Vascular Biology Program, report a novel therapeutic fusion that could trigger increased S1P receptor activity and recover blood vessel health following the onset of hypertension, atherosclerosis, stroke, heart attack and other cardiovascular diseases. …

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Ambulatory BP monitoring for all kids with suspected hypertension? Model could lower screening costs

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Blood pressure taken in child-shutterstock_181679828First of a two-part series on cardiovascular prevention in children. Read part two.

As childhood obesity has increased over the past 30 years, so has pediatric hypertension, which now affects one in 20 children. However, 48 percent of children with high blood pressure (BP) are of normal weight; other risk factors include low birth weight, which has also increased in the past 30 years (more recently dipping slightly to about 8 percent of births).

While children with hypertension rarely develop diseases that adults do, such as myocardial infarction, heart failure and stroke, they are at risk for adult hypertension and early symptoms of heart disease. “Attacking pediatric hypertension is the next frontier in cardiovascular disease prevention,” says Justin Zachariah, MD, MPH, of the Department of Cardiology at Boston Children’s Hospital.

The Affordable Care Act’s mandate to identify elevated BP in children is expected to increase referrals for screening. But diagnosing pediatric hypertension through BP screening in the clinic can be problematic. In a recent study, Zachariah found that ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) with a take-home device is both effective and cost-effective—especially when done from the get-go. …

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Blood pressure, cholesterol screening in kids: Guidelines vs. real world?

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Primary care visit
Is universal cardiovascular screening supported by the data, and are clinicians ready?
In 2011, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) guidelines for cardiovascular risk reduction in pediatrics reinforced the recommendation that primary care pediatricians (PCPs) should screen children and adolescents for cholesterol and blood pressure elevations. However, as PCPs try to incorporate it into their well childcare routine, questions are being raised about the practical implications of implementing that recommendation.

Last month, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) published its finding that there is not enough evidence to recommend for or against routine screening for primary hypertension in asymptomatic children and teens, repeating its suggestions from 2003. It has issued similar statements about lipid screening.

At this week’s 2013 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) conference, Sarah de Ferranti, MD, MPH, director of the Preventive Cardiology Clinic at Boston Children’s Hospital, gave a presentation titled “Universal Lipid Screening: Are Pediatricians Doing It and How Is It Working?” She spoke with Vector about screening both for cholesterol and blood pressure in children. …

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New app distills the fine art of interpreting a child’s blood pressure

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Hypertension is harder to diagnose in children than you think. A new app, which can work with multiple EMR systems, helps doctors interpret a child’s blood pressure readings based on age, height, sex and measurement technique, and get the long-range view. (Click to enlarge)

Despite blood pressure screenings, hypertension in children is often missed, while other children get evaluated and sometimes treated for high blood pressure readings that turn out to have been transient (often induced by kids’ fear of doctors). That has cardiologists like Justin Zachariah, MD, MPH, concerned.

“We’re both overdiagnosing and underdiagnosing hypertension,” says Zachariah, of the Boston Children’s Hospital Preventive Cardiology Clinic. “There must be a problem in the way we’re measuring it.”

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is being seen more and more often in kids. Its prevalence 15 years ago was about 1 percent; now it’s nearly 5 percent, according to 2011 data from the American Heart Association, likely due to unhealthy diets and lack of exercise. …

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Battling rising hypertension in children: 5 tools

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FDR (here signing the Declaration of War against Japan, 1941) died from a stroke caused by years of hypertension. Millions of U.S. children could meet the same fate – unless we act now.

While many of us recall that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had polio, few remember that he died in 1945 from another cause: stroke. The sentiment of his physician — that it “had come out of the clear sky” — reflected the prevailing view that heart attack and stroke were bolts from the blue that doctors could act on only after the event.

But a few mavericks challenged this “salvage” paradigm, establishing the Framingham Heart Study in 1948 to identify predictors of cardiovascular events. One leading maverick, Dr. William Kannel, who passed away last month, coined the term “risk factors” to describe these predictors. Acting on the insight that controlling risk factors could prevent cardiovascular disease saved the lives of more than 150,000 Americans from heart disease alone between 1980 and 2000.

Judging by the surviving medical records, Roosevelt’s stroke may have been preventable with treatment for one such risk factor, hypertension. How different would the world have been had his persistent high blood pressure been treated?

The world is different now, not all for the better. High blood pressure has been attacking more and more children over the last 30 years, …

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