(HealthDay News) High blood pressure — even above the level ordinarily regarded as dangerous — is a good indicator of long-term survival for people admitted to an intensive care unit because of chest pains that indicate a major heart problem, Swedish researchers report.
Their study, which involved 119,151 people admitted to ICUs for chest pain between 1997 and 2007, found the best one-year survival rate among those who had a systolic pressure (the higher of the recommended 120/80 number) at or above 163, according to a report in the March 24/31 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study was conducted at Swedish hospitals by physicians at Linkoping University.
Survival was poorest for the one-quarter of people who had the lowest blood pressure readings, less than 128 systolic, the study found. Their one-year death rate was 40.3 percent higher than for those in the next category up, with a systolic pressure of 128 to 144.
Overall, as blood pressure levels rose, the one-year death rate declined. Compared with people with a systolic reading of 128 to 144, those with readings between 145 and 162 had a 15.2 percent lower death rate, and people in the highest category, with a systolic reading of 163 or greater, had a 21.7 percent lower death rate.
There have been hints of such an effect in previous studies, said Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, a professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, who led one such study, which included people with acute heart failure.
That study did find improved survival associated with higher blood pressure, and other studies have found a similar effect during a hospital stay, “but this is the first study looking at one-year survival,” Fonarow said.
Why should blood pressure normally regarded as dangerously high be beneficial? “It could be a marker for patients with better cardiovascular reserves,” Fonarow said. “It suggests that those patients who can engender a very high response may have less severe disease or a more intact neuro-hormonal system.”
LowerPressure.com Editor’s Note: In order to avoid reaching inaccurate conclusions from this study, it’s important to note that the study looked at a very special group of patients in crisis and that the results do not indicate that high blood pressure should not be treated.
(2 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
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The whole report is absolutely ridiculous. It makes no sense. What that makes sense is being said here? I can’t find it. It’s just blah, blah and blah.
its an average help to high blood patient.
I appreciate this report because Swedish Health Care is very good. A sister of a friend of mine had a heart attack there and has had amazing care she would not have gotten in the U.S. unless rich. Also, I think that both high blood pressure and high cholesterol are not the culprits we think them to be. The numbers are played with and lowered from time to time, so that more and more Americans are in danger of being on un-needed and expensive medication with lots of unneeded side-effects. For me, the solution if at all possible will be as natural as possible – diet (changing whatever is needed), exercise and sensible, stress-relieved living.
Maybe people with high blood pressure have a stronger heart muscle for dealing with so much resistance. The bad side is that the blood pressure can cause kidney failure.
Interesting.
But the LowerPressure.com.Editor’s Note must be considered!
Furthermore, this article does not make clear what exactly the health conditions of the ‘very special group of patients in crisis’ were.
Nevertheless, I believe that due to blood pressure being able to be detected and measured easily many patients are indiscriminately treated with very potent drugs after a few higher than normal readings, especially when the blood pressure is borderline.
May be there are situations when lower blood pressure actually may be too low to support the function of the heart muscle.
Especially elderly patients may not tolerate drugs as well as younger patients and I have read other ‘reports’ which seem to indicate that to treat the elderly aggressively with drugs may even be counterproductive.
Why do I contribute? I am ‘elderly’ and with a normal night time pulse rate of 42 bpm, possibly due to sporting activity I was prescribed a strong Beta Blocker after having contracted a virus which affected my heart. My BP during the illness and after having been admitted to hospital was about 158/90 at that time. The brutal reality is that the Beta Blocker and not the high blood pressure could have killed me because the pulse rate would have fallen even further, to the extent that the heart muscle would not have been supported anymore. Common sense and the advice of a doctor in the family prevented this calamity.
I have fully recovered, do not take drugs, with now normal blood pressure, whatever that is.
To some extent I would believe that the above mentioned report may be on the right track but probably only for some patients.
I need to add something:
The virus caused atrial fibrillation which lasted five hours and there was talk of electroshock therapy to put the heart into sinus rhythm again. Fortunately this was not needed and my heart started beating normally and regularly again just after five hours.
I guess the prescribing of the Beta Blocker probably was correct under the circumstances, however, the advice of the treating cardiologist to take the medication and “come back for a check-up in six weeks time” without any consultation in between was, in my opinion, negligent.