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(Circulation. 2003;107:e9018.)
© 2003 American Heart Association, Inc.

Cardiovascular News

Ruth SoRelle, MPH

Circulation Newswriter

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

Beware That Morning Surge

Higher surges in blood pressure recorded in the morning are associated with increased stroke risk, according to a report by Japanese researchers in this week’s issue of Circulation (Circulation. 2003;107:1401–1405). The scientists, led by Kazuomi Kario, MD, of the Department of Cardiology at Jichi Medical School in Tochigi, Japan, said the finding in their prospective study could provide new targets for therapy that prevent target organ damage and subsequent cardiovascular events in patients with hypertension.

In this study, scientists studied stroke prognosis in 519 older patients with hypertension in whom ambulatory blood pressure monitoring was formed and silent cerebral infarct was assessed by magnetic resonance imaging of the brain. The morning surge in blood pressure was calculated by subtracting mean systolic blood pressure during 1 hour that included the lowest sleeping blood pressure from the mean systolic blood pressure during the 2 hours after waking. Cardiovascular events most often occur during the morning hours, which led the researchers to study the blood pressure during this period.

Over an average of 51 months, the patients suffered 44 strokes. They were divided into groups on the basis of the calculation of their morning blood pressure surge. Those in the top decile had a higher baseline prevalence of multiple infarcts (57% versus 33%) and a higher incidence of stokes (19% versus 7.3%) during the follow-up period, when compared with the other group. The effect of the morning surge in blood pressure was independently associated with stroke without effect by the ambulatory . . . [Full Text of this Article]