Long-term variations in blood pressure raises risk of early death

Anyone who has had frequent blood pressure checks knows that blood pressure is never constant. We've all had stressful days and we generally attribute high swings in blood pressure to this. Needless to say we are reassured if a subsequent blood pressure check a few days or weeks later shows a lower reading. Now scientists have found that variations in blood pressure over long periods, of months and years, raises the risk of ill-health and is a predictor of early mortality in hypertensive patients. Researchers at the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow calculated the variability of blood pressure, over long periods of time - one, four, five and nine years, in 14,522 hypertensive patients attending the Glasgow blood pressure clinic. Their results showed that the magnitude of visit-to-visit blood pressure variation was a strong predictor of mortality, independent of their long-term average blood pressure. Even those individuals who would be considered well-controlled in terms of blood pressure values at each visit, showed a higher risk if they had wide swings in their blood pressure readings between clinic visits.