Newswise — Two out of three sudden deaths due to heart attack and stroke occur in otherwise healthy individuals with no known disease. These individuals may be doing all the right things: maintaining their weight, taking in a healthy diet, keeping active in some fashion, in addition to not having any disease like high blood pressure or diabetes. Now, researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center have determined that conditions called pre-hypertension and pre-diabetes in this population could be a tip-off to early death.
Heart disease and stroke are the leading causes of death, not only in developed countries like the United States, but are also becoming an increasing problem in developing countries. Those with high blood pressure or diabetes have a high risk for sudden death due to heart attack or stroke.
The latest report, however, looked for signs of problems before high blood pressure or diabetes becomes full-blown. Prehypertension, defined as a blood pressure between 120 to 139 and 80 to 89 mm Hg, and prediabetes, blood sugar between 100 and 125 mg/dL could be two very early warning signs of future heart attack or stroke.
“We found that one in three apparently healthy adults had prehypertension. One in four of otherwise healthy individuals had prediabetes,” said Alok Gupta, M.D., one of the researchers reporting the latest finding, “One in ten healthy individuals had both prehypertension and prediabetes, at the same time.”
Gupta and his colleagues examined existing data bases (NHANES 1999-2006) and discovered that individuals who were prehypertensive and prediabetic were also overweight, had a larger waist circumference (abdominal obesity), had higher total cholesterol, higher “bad cholesterol” and low “good cholesterol. They also had higher pulse pressure (difference between the systolic and diastolic blood pressure), higher insulin (a hormone that reduces blood glucose) levels, and higher inflammation. In short, the majority of otherwise healthy individuals had significantly elevated risk factors for heart disease and stroke, although they had not been diagnosed or had a history of health problems.
The researchers suggest that prehypertension (higher than normal blood pressure of 120/80 mm Hg) and prediabetes (higher than normal blood sugar of more than 100 mg/dL) occurring together, should be a red flag for urgent further evaluation.
Because a resting blood pressure measurement and spot finger stick are routinely taken during a doctor’s office visit, Gupta suggests physicians can use the results of these two, simple tests to prescribe life-style changes known to reduce weight, cholesterol and blood glucose.
“Those changes may prevent high blood pressure and diabetes from occurring later in life,” Gupta said, “and reduce risk in otherwise healthy adults.”
Gupta released his conclusions during the annual scientific meeting of the American Society of Hypertension this week in New York City.
The Pennington Biomedical Research Center is a campus of the Louisiana State University System and conducts basic, clinical and population research. The research enterprise at the Center includes 80 faculty and more than 40 post-doctoral fellows who comprise a network of 57 laboratories supported by lab technicians, nurses, dieticians, and support personnel, and 19 highly specialized core service facilities. The Center's nearly 600 employees occupy several buildings on the 234-acre campus.
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