OBJECTIVE: Explore changes in walking behavior, blood pressure, and weight over the course of a pilot intervention designed to increase physical activity. DESIGN: A pre/post single group design was used to examine outcomes of a 12-month group intervention with 6-month follow-up. SAMPLE: Twenty-one sedentary hypertensive African American women residing in ...

A study of 82 normal and 60 compromised pregnant women who were identified by uterine artery Doppler flow waveform systolic/diastolic ratio >95th percentile (increased peripheral resistance) was carried out to examine the elastic properties of the maternal abdominal aorta (AA). An aortic stiffness index (SI) was measured between 18 and ...

Limited data suggest that physical activity increases postexercise blood pressure in African-American women. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the postexercise blood pressure response to acute exercise in normotensive young adult African-American women. Eight healthy women (age 22.5+/-.9 years) performed a cycle ergometer bout of 30 minutes at ...

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess the long-term effects of low-dose oral hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on 24-h blood pressure in hypertensive postmenopausal women. STUDY DESIGN: In this 12-month, prospective study, 66 postmenopausal women with mild or moderate hypertension were randomly assigned to receive either HRT with ...

BACKGROUND: Recent research suggests that the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program has positive effects on health, but little is known about the immediate physiological effects of different components of the program. PURPOSE: To examine the short-term autonomic and cardiovascular effects of one of the techniques employed in mindfulness meditation training, a ...

BACKGROUND: In the Valsartan Antihypertensive Long-term Use Evaluation (VALUE) trial the primary outcome (cardiac morbidity and mortality) did not differ between valsartan and amlodipine-based treatment groups, although systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure reductions were significantly more pronounced with amlodipine. Stroke incidence was non-significantly, and myocardial infarction was ...

Systolic blood pressure increase between the second and third trimester of pregnancy has been associated with a substantially reduced maternal breast cancer risk, and it has been suggested that elevated androgens mediate the association. Androgen and estrogen concentrations were measured in maternal serum collected in 86 uncomplicated, singleton pregnancies. Overall, ...

Background: The objective of this study was to explore the relationship, if any, between theserum heat-stable alkaline phosphatase (HS-ALP) activity and the blood pressure (BP) of patients with pre-eclampsia and eclampsia. Method: The activity of HS-ALP was measured using the 4 - nitrophenyl phosphate (4 - NPP) method after incubation ...

Neck and shoulder pain is a common disorder which is often associated with a low-pressure pain threshold (PPT) of muscle tissues as manifested by hyperalgesia on palpation or the use of a pressure algometer. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the intratester repeatability of pressure algometer (Force-Five) ...

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the consistency between a randomly recruited Western European population and the participants of the Framingham Heart Study, with respect to the rates and determinants of progression to hypertension. METHODS: Among the non-hypertensive individuals enrolled in the Flemish Study on Environment, Genes and Health Outcomes, we assessed progression ...

PURPOSE: Impaired endothelial function has been implicated as an initial step in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis leading to cardiovascular disease (CVD). Aerobic exercise improves vascular function and reduces risk of CVD morbidity and mortality; however, the effects of resistance training on vascular function remains unclear. Thus, the aim of this ...

OBJECTIVE: Advanced glycation end-products are considered to be markers of oxidative stress and to be involved in the atherosclerotic process. We investigated skin autofluorescence, which reflected advanced glycation end-product accumulation, in recently preeclamptic women and its relationship with intima-media thickness, which is a marker of atherosclerosis. STUDY DESIGN: Skin autofluorescence ...

The objective of this study was to compare the effects on blood pressure of predominantly insoluble fiber (whole wheat and brown rice) and soluble fiber (barley) in a whole-grain diet. Subjects (seven men, nine premenopausal women, and nine postmenopausal women) consumed a controlled Step I diet for 2 weeks; then ...

BACKGROUND: The Women's Health Study of Accra was conducted to determine the burden of illness in a representative sampling of adult urban women. METHODS: This community-based survey selected study participants by a 2-stage cluster probability sample stratified by socioeconomic status based on the 2000 Ghanaian census data. It included a ...

OBJECTIVE: Preeclampsia is associated with profound vasoconstriction in most organ systems and reduced plasma volume. Because water immersion produces a marked central redistribution of blood volume and suppresses the renin-angiotensin system response and sympathetic activity, we hypothesized that water immersion might be useful in the treatment of preeclampsia. STUDY DESIGN: ...

BACKGROUND: The aim of the present study was to determine whether sex differences contribute to the association of serum uric acid and left ventricular hypertrophy in individuals with hypertension. METHODS AND RESULTS: Seventy participants with essential hypertension (34 men, 36 women; 54.4 +/- 1.6 years old) were enrolled to undergo ...

Measurement of blood pressure together with applanation tonometry at the radial artery allows the reproducible assessment of various indexes of arterial stiffness, including the peripheral (PPp) and central pulse pressures (PPc) and the peripheral (Alp) and central augmentation indexes (Alc). We defined preliminary diagnostic thresholds, using the distributional characteristics of ...

BACKGROUND: Tooth loss predicts total and circulatory mortality. The reasons for the increased mortality in subjects with a low number of teeth may be related to enhanced atherosclerosis, elevated arterial pressure and more frequent hypertension. The present study was designed to investigate whether there is an association between the number ...

BACKGROUND: Reliable, large-scale, population-based data on blood pressure for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations are limited. This present study aims to describe the blood pressure levels and to explore the clinical risk factors for hypertension among Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. DESIGN: A cross-sectional population survey ...

Overweight and obesity are important determinants of health leading to adverse metabolic changes, including increase in blood pressure. Being overweight is associated with two- to six-fold increase in the risk of developing hypertension. Studies in urban Indian population showed strong relationship between different anthropometric indicators and blood pressure levels. Surprisingly, ...

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the antihypertensive efficacy of L-arginine (L-Arg) repeated infusions in women affected by gestational hypertension. METHODS: The women were referred to obstetric units in order to assess their clinical conditions and to exclude the presence of severe fetal and/or maternal complications. Inclusion criteria were: maternal age range 16-45 ...

To explore sex differences in the response of seven brain regions to an aversive pelvic visceral stimulus, functional magnetic resonance images were acquired from 13 healthy adults (6 women) during 15 s of cued rectal distension at two pressures: 25 mmHg (uncomfortable), and 45 mmHg (mild pain), as well as ...

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine whether serum fms-like tyrosine kinase 1 (sFlt1) concentration during preeclampsia were associated with mid trimester blood pressure, other maternal characteristics, or pregnancy outcomes. STUDY DESIGN: We performed a nested case-control study within the Calcium for Preeclampsia Prevention study cohort. Each woman ...

A review of the literature studying possible correlations between hearing function and cardiovascular disease (CVD) reveals a complex and somewhat contradictory picture. Most studies favor the concept of an association between hearing loss and CVD. The issue of interactions between noise-induced hearing loss and CVD, as well as between age-related ...

OBJECTIVE: Pre-eclampsia is a serious complication of pregnancy with high morbidity and mortality and an incidence of 3-5% in all pregnancies. Early prediction is still insufficient in clinical practice. Although most pre-eclamptic patients have pathological uterine perfusion in the second trimester, perfusion disturbance has a positive predictive accuracy (PPA) only ...

OBJECTIVE: To assess arterial stiffness in pregnancies complicated by hypertensive disorders: preeclampsia and chronic hypertension. STUDY DESIGN: Twenty preeclamptic and 18 chronic hypertensive parturients were studied. The reference data were obtained from 29 healthy pregnant women and 29 non-pregnant women. Systolic blood pressure (SAP), diastolic blood pressure (DAP), mean arterial ...

Male and female participants were led to believe they could secure a low or high chance of winning a prize by meeting a modest standard on a purportedly masculine task, that is, a task on which men ostensibly had higher ability. As expected, systolic blood pressure responses measured during performance ...

STUDY OBJECTIVES: Since most gynecologists use the Veres/trocar entry, and because the Veres intraperitoneal (VIP) pressure appears to be the most reliable indicator of correct Veres needle placement, the objective of this study was to determine the effect of height, weight, body mass index (BMI), parity, and age on the ...

AIMS: We compared the effects of oral conjugated equine estrogen (CEE) therapy and transdermal estradiol therapy on pulse wave velocity (PWV) and circulating levels of vascular inflammatory markers in postmenopausal women and we also explored the interrelationship between the change in PWV and the changes in vascular inflammatory markers. METHODS ...

The authors hypothesized that individuals born in the early 20th century who experienced the hottest and driest summers during infancy would be more likely to have suffered severe infant diarrhea and dehydration, and consequently have had higher blood pressure in adulthood, than those who experienced cooler and wetter summers. In ...

BACKGROUND: Few data exist to evaluate whether Tai Chi (TC) training improves physical performance and hemodynamic outcomes more than a wellness education (WE) program does among older fallers transitioning to frailty. METHODS: This 48-week randomized clinical trial was provided at 10 matched pairs of congregate living facilities in the Atlanta ...

As there is growing evidence that hypertensive pregnancy disorders are associated with a risk of cardiovascular diseases later, the resolution of hypertension postpartum (PP) is of high clinical significance. However, there is little knowledge about the factors that influence this normalization. The objectives of our study were (a) to investigate ...

Several previous studies have demonstrated sex differences in cardiovascular autonomic control in healthy young women, but little is known about the regulation of blood pressure in hypertensive elderly women, who have the greatest risk of adverse cardiovascular events. Therefore, we examined sex differences in physiological responses to upright tilt in ...

We compared blood pressure of individuals (mean age 59 y) born in western Holland between January 1945 and March 1946 (mothers exposed to the Dutch Famine before or during gestation; n = 359) to blood pressure of unexposed individuals born before or conceived after the famine (n = 299) or ...

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of individually prescribed oral appliances for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) on blood pressure, as well as factors influencing the efficacy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred sixty-one patients (121 men and 40 women, mean age: 54.3 ...

BACKGROUND: Asthma is a serious medical problem in pregnancy and is often associated with stress, anger and poor quality of life. The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy of progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) on change in blood pressure, lung parameters, heart rate, anger and health-related quality of ...

OBJECTIVE: To measure and compare pulse pressure in early pregnancy between parturients who subsequently did or did not develop preeclampsia. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective chart review of 44 parturients with preeclampsia and 187 controls without. The groups were compared for blood pressure indices before 15 weeks' gestation and other maternal variables. ...

OBJECTIVE: The study's objective was to determine population trends in blood pressure, hypertension prevalence, hypertension control, and stroke mortality. METHODS: We performed population-based surveys of 2906 to 5630 adults from 1980 to 1982, 1985 to 1987, 1990 to 1992, 1995 to 1997, and 2000 to 2002, and stroke mortality from ...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between age at puberty and blood pressure at age 53 years. DESIGN: A prospective birth cohort study with regular contacts through childhood and adulthood until the age of 53 years. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 1193 men and 1204 women, from a sample of 5362 born ...

Alteration of autonomic nervous system regulation is known to be present in the persistent vegetative state after traumatic brain injury, termed the dysautonomic syndrome. This study assessed the circadian blood pressure and heart rate pattern and variability in the persistent vegetative state through noninvasive 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. The ...

AIM: To determine the concentrations of nitric oxide (NO) in plasma of women with essential hypertension in prehypertensive phase, its effect on blood pressure, and correlation with other vasoactive substances that regulate systemic and renal vascular tonus. METHODS: The study performed at the Department of Nephrology, Hospital Center in Skopje, ...

INTRODUCTION: Many studies demonstrated that a prolonged heart rate-corrected QT interval (QTc) increases the risk of malignant ventricular arrhythmias and sudden death. METHODS: We measured the electrocardiogram and blood pressure of 1480 hypertensive patients and assessed the relationship between the length of QTc and blood pressure. RESULTS: The mean QTc ...

OBJECTIVE: To determine if 17beta-estradiol increases blood pressure in postmenopausal women. DESIGN: A total of 222 healthy postmenopausal women were randomly assigned to either 1 mg micronized 17beta-estradiol daily or placebo for 2 years. Blood pressure measurements were obtained every other month and common carotid artery intima-media thickness measured every ...

Sixty-four neonates (M age=6.8 days) of depressed mothers who received moderate pressure massage versus light pressure massage therapy during pregnancy (month 5 through month 8) were compared on their behaviors during 15-min observations and on their performance on the Brazelton Neonatal Behavior Assessment Scale. The group of neonates whose mothers ...

OBJECTIVES: The goal of this study was to determine the relationship between resting blood pressure (BP) and C-reactive protein (CRP) in a multi-ethnic cohort of men and women from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA). BACKGROUND: Several investigators have observed elevated levels of CRP in individuals with hypertension. Hypertension prevalence ...

Progesterone has a high affinity for the mineralocorticoid receptor and is an antagonist of aldosterone. Almost all synthetic progestogens are devoid of an antimineralocorticoid effect, and are unable to antagonize the salt-retaining effect of estrogens. This property could be one cause of the weight gain and increase in blood pressure ...

Numerous indexes derived from polysomnography are available to characterize sleep-disordered breathing, with no consensus over which measures best predict clinical outcomes. This study addresses the relative merits of using alternative polysomnography indexes by characterizing the consistency and strength of the association of each index with blood pressure and hypertension. Cross-sectional ...

We previously showed that, in comparison with term healthy parturients, patients with severe preeclampsia had a less frequent incidence of spinal hypotension, which was less severe and required less ephedrine. In the present study, we hypothesized that these findings were attributable to preeclampsia-associated factors rather than to a smaller uterine ...

OBJECTIVE: Since beta2-adrenergic receptors are important regulators of blood pressure, genetic variation in this receptor could explain risk of elevated blood pressure in selected individuals. We tested the hypothesis that Gly16Arg, Gln27Glu, and Thr164Ile in the beta2-adrenergic receptor gene associated with elevated blood pressure. METHODS: We genotyped 9185 individuals from ...

OBJECTIVE: To assess the relationship between blood pressure pattern and intrauterine growth restriction in normotensive pregnant women. STUDY DESIGN: Twenty-four-hour ambulatory blood pressure was consecutively performed between 32 and 34 weeks in 139 normotensive, non-proteinuric, primigravidae with intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and in 140 primigravidae, matched for age and gestation, ...