High cholesterol may raise blood pressure-study

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – People with high cholesterol also
have a greater risk of high blood pressure, U.S. researchers
reported on Monday in one of the first studies to demonstrate
that one may cause the other.

A study of 3,000 men monitored for 14 years showed that
those who developed the unhealthiest cholesterol levels raised
their risk of hypertension by 39 percent.

“There appears to be a significant association between
increased cholesterol levels and the risk of developing
hypertension in healthy, middle-aged men,” said Howard Sesso,
an epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard
Medical School in Boston.

“We looked at this same exact question in a study published
a month ago … in women. We found the same thing,” Sesso said
in a telephone interview.

While both conditions lead to heart disease, the No. 1
killer of Americans and people in many other developed nations,
Sesso said few researchers had looked at whether high
cholesterol could actually cause high blood pressure.

He believes that the damage cholesterol causes to the walls
of arteries makes them less elastic, leading to high blood
pressure. “Our findings suggest we may have a new means of
preventing hypertension, a devastating public heath issue in
this country,” he said.

As many as 90 percent of U.S. adults with normal blood
pressure at age 55 may develop hypertension in their lifetime,
according to the American Heart Association.

Unhealthy blood cholesterol is trickier to calculate as it
involves several different readings — high total cholesterol,
high levels of low density lipoprotein or “bad” cholesterol and
low levels of high density lipoprotein or “good” cholesterol.

But the American Heart Association says nearly 107 million
American adults have total blood cholesterol values of more
than 200, considered the highest desirable level.

SIMILAR RISK FACTORS

The risk factors for high blood pressure and high
cholesterol are similar — a diet rich in fat, low in whole
grains, fruits and vegetables and a lack of exercise.

Sesso’s team started with more than 3,000 men taking part
in a larger study called the Physician’s Health Study. At the
beginning all had healthy blood pressure and cholesterol
levels.

Over the average of 14 years of follow-up, a third of the
men developed high blood pressure, the researchers reported in
the latest issue of the journal Hypertension.

Men with the worst levels of bad cholesterol had a 54
percent higher risk of high blood pressure compared to the mean
with the healthiest levels.

Men with the highest levels of total cholesterol were 23
percent more likely to develop hypertension than men with the
lowest levels. But men with the highest HDL or “good”
cholesterol levels had a 32 percent lower risk of high blood
pressure than those with the lowest HDL levels.

A second study, published in the journal Circulation,
showed total cholesterol levels have decreased in middle-aged
to older adults but are rising among younger adults.

A survey of 5,000 adults in Minnesota, ongoing for 20
years, showed that drugs may be responsible.

“The older age groups use more lipid-lowering drugs. This
may be partially responsible for the continued reduction of
their total cholesterol,” said Donna Arnett of the University
of Alabama at Birmingham, who led the study.