Variations in blood pressure are better for predicting the risk of stroke than high average readings, new research has shown.
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Stroke research welcomed
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Interview: Andrew Dougal
They are also important indicators of vulnerability to heart attacks, heart failure, and angina chest pains, a study suggests.
The findings, reported in The Lancet medical journal, could have major implications for the prevention of strokes and heart attacks.
Experts say clinical guidelines for treating patients should now be reviewed, as currently no special importance is attached to fluctuations in blood pressure.
Four thousand people suffer from strokes in Northern Ireland each year.
It is the third biggest killer and the single biggest cause of severe disability in the region.
Professor Peter Rothwell, from the University of Oxford, who led the study, said: "Raised blood pressure, or hypertension, accounts for over 50% of the risk of stroke and other vascular events in the population.
"It has long been believed that it is the underlying average blood pressure that determines most of the risk of complications from hypertension and all of the benefit from the drugs that are used to lower blood pressure.
"The work that we have done shows that this hypothesis is only partly true - at least when it comes to stroke, the most common complication of hypertension.
"We have shown that it is variations in people's blood pressure rather than the average level that predicts stroke most powerfully. Occasional high values, and what might be called episodic hypertension, carry a high risk of stroke. Previously, such fluctuations were considered to be benign and uninformative."
Anne Madden, Director of Research at the Northern Ireland Chest, Heart and Stroke Association, said that this research is a real breakthrough.
"Half of all adults in developed countries have high blood pressure. A lot of prescriptions are for treating high blood pressure but we believe that this research may lead to new medication that might look at how to keep blood pressure at consistently the same level.
She said that it will take some time before the medical community can examine the findings.
"It will take probably some years before we see the benefits and the outcomes.
"But it is exciting research and we should be optimistic that we can greatly reduce the thousands of people who suffer a stroke every year in Northern Ireland."
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