- American Journal of Hypertension
http://ajh.oxfordjournals.org/
- Blood Pressure
http://informahealthcare.com/journal/blo - Blood Pressure Monitoring
http://journals.lww.com/bpmonitoring/pages/default.aspx - Clinical and Experimental Hypertension
http://informahealthcare.com/journal/ceh - Current Hypertension Reports
http://www.springer.com/medicine/internal/journal/11906 - Hypertension
http://hyper.ahajournals.org/content/by/year - Hypertension Research
http://www.nature.com/hr/index.html - International Journal of Hypertension
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijhy/ - Journal of Clinical Hypertension
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28ISSN%291751-7176 - Journal of Human Hypertension
http://www.nature.com/jhh/index.html - Journal of Hypertension
http://journals.lww.com/jhypertension/pages/default.aspx - Journal of Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System
http://jra.sagepub.com/ - Journal of the American Society of Hypertension
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-the-american-society-of-hype... - Kidney and Blood Pressure Research
http://www.karger.com/Journal/Home/224258 - Opinion in Nephrology and Hypertension
http://journals.lww.com/co-nephrolhypertens/pages/default.aspx - Pregnancy Hypertension
http://www.pregnancyhypertension.org/
Annotated list of 2016 papers
NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). Worldwide trends in blood pressure from 1975 to 2015: a pooled analysis of 1479 population-based measurement studies with 19.1 million participants. The Lancet. Published online November 15, 2016. Doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31919-5
This is an interesting overview showing that the highest worldwide blood pressure levels have shifted from high-income countries to low-income countries
in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa as well as Central and Eastern Europe
Hughes A, Falaschetti E, Witt N, et al. Association of retinopathy and retinal microvascular abnormalities with stroke and cerebrovascular disease. Stroke 2016;47:2862-4.
Elegant clinical study showing that abnormalities of the retinal microvasculature are independently associated with stroke, cerebral infarcts and white matter lesions
Collins R, Reith C, Emberson J, et al. Interpretation of the evidence for the efficacy and safety of statin therapy. The Lancet. 2016;388(10059):2532-61 Doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31357-5
Comprehensive review on statin use, including primary prevention for cardiovascular risk in hypertensive patients
Townsend RR, Epstein M. Resistant hypertension: insights on evaluation and management in the post-SPRINT (Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial) era. Hypertension 2016;68:1073-80.
A brief review discussing the definitions and scope of resistant hypertension, including the role of measurement technique, medication nonadherence, the most common causes and the treatment of resistant hypertension, including device management
Elgendy IY, Bavry AA, Gong Y, et al. Long-term mortality in hypertension patients with coronary artery disease: results from the US cohort of the international verapamil (SR)/Trandolapril study. Hypertension 2016;68:1110-4. The online-only data supplement is available at http://hyper-ahajournals.org//lookup/suppl/doi:/10.1/161/hypertensionaha.116.078541.1/DCI
This is the first study to investigate the relationship between long-term all-cause mortality and achieved systolic blood pressure among a cohort of older adult hypertensive patients with documented coronary artery disease
Boal AH, Smith DJ, McCallum L, et al. Monotherapy with major antihypertensive drug classes and risk of hospital admission for mood disorders. Hypertension 2016;68:1132-8. The online-only data supplement is available at http://hyper.ahajournals.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1/161/hypertenionaha.116.081881.1/DCI
This study caused a major shock as it revealed that antihypertensive drug classes have a differential effect on hospital admissions for mood disorders. β-blockers and calcium channel blockers seem to be associated with a higher risk for mood disorder hospital admissions. Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers may exert a protective effect compared with other antihypertensive drugs at first exposure
Magee LA, von Dadelszen P, Singer J, et al - CHIPS Study Group. The CHIPS randomized controlled trial (Control of Hypertension in Pregnancy study): is severe hypertension just an elevated blood pressure? Hypertension 2016;68:1153-9. The online only data supplement is available at https://hyper.ahajournals.org//lookup/suppl/doi:10.1/161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.116.078621.1DCI
This study discusses the fact that severe hypertension is more than just a problem blood pressure. Rather, severe hypertension is an important clinical outcome worthy of avoidance, which increases the risk of adverse perinatal and maternal outcome beyond the risk of stroke. These issues are independent of the risk of preeclampsia
Mäki-Petäjä KM, Barrett SM, Evans SV, et al. The role of the autonomic nervous system in the regulation of aortic stiffness. Hypertension 2016;68:1290-7. Hypertension is available at http://hyper.ahajournals.org DOI:10/161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.116.08035Hypertension2016,26:1290-1297
The main finding of this series of studies is that in young healthy subjects, the autonomic nervous system regulates aortic stiffness via changes in heart rate and mean blood pressure
Wang C, Ye Z, Li Y, et al. Prognostic value of reverse dipper blood pressure pattern in chronic kidney disease patients not undergoing dialysis: prospective cohort study. Scientific Reports 6:34932 (2016) DOI:10.1038/serp34932. Available from: www.nature.com/scientificreports
This study provides the first evidence that a reverse dipping blood pressure pattern, independent of 24-hour systolic blood pressure, has prognostic value in Chinese chronic kidney disease patients not undergoing dialysis. Further prospective randomized clinical trials are needed to clarify if correction of blood pressure patterns by administration of antihypertensive drugs at night improves the prognosis and attenuates progression of cardiovascular disease and renal disease in chronic kidney patients
The debate on optimum blood pressure targets continues post-SPRINT, with several publications addressing this issue:
Vidal-Petiot E, Ford I, Greenlaw N, et al. Cardiovascular event rates and mortality according to achieved systolic and diastolic blood pressure in patients with stable coronary artery disease: an international cohort study. Lancet 2016;388:2142-52. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673616313265
A recent analysis of data from 22,672 patients with stable coronary artery disease and hypertension enrolled in the CLARIFY registry was published in the Lancet. The authors found a J-shaped relationship between blood pressure (BP) and the composite of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke with systolic BP >140 mmHg and diastolic BP >80 mmHg and systolic BP <120 mmHg and diastolic BP <70 mmHg being associated with increased risk. The optimal level of blood pressure for these combined cardiovascular endpoints appeared to be about 130/77 mmHg after adjusting for relevant factors. Observational registry data should be interpreted with caution as there is a concern about reverse causality where a low systolic or diastolic BP might only be a marker of poor health rather than the cause of worse clinical outcomes. The authors discuss this in the article and consider that appropriate adjustments were made to overcome this issue.
Ettehad D, Emdin CA, Kiran A, et al. Blood pressure lowering for prevention of cardiovascular disease and death: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet 2016;387:957-67. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26724178
Meta-regression analyses included data from 123 studies (including the SPRINT study) with 613,815 participants and found every 10 mmHg reduction in systolic BP significantly reduced the risk of major cardiovascular disease events (relative risk 0.80, 95% CI 0.77-0.83), coronary heart disease, stroke, heart failure and all-cause mortality, with similar proportional reductions across various population subgroups, irrespective of starting blood pressure. A baseline history for diabetes and chronic kidney disease was associated with smaller, but significant, risk reductions. Calcium channel blockers were superior to other drugs for the prevention of stroke but inferior for the prevention of heart failure, for which diuretics were superior to other drug classes. The authors concluded that their results provide strong support for lowering blood pressure to systolic BP <130 mmHg and providing blood pressure-lowering treatment to individuals with a history of cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, heart failure, and chronic kidney disease
Brunstrom M, Carlberg B. Effect of antihypertensive treatment at different blood pressure levels in patients with diabetes mellitus: systematic review and meta-analyses. Br Med J 2016;352:i717. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26920333
A systematic review and meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials of antihypertensive treatment in people with diabetes mellitus from 49 trials including 73,738 participants, found antihypertensive treatment reduced the risks if baseline systolic BP was >150 mmHg or 140-150 mmHg but not if it was <140 mmHg. They concluded if systolic BP is <140 mmHg, further treatment is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular death, with no observed benefit. The analysis included the ALTITUDE study which found a harmful effect from lower blood pressures achieved by the addition of aliskiren to standard therapy with renin-angiotensin system blockade in patients with type 2 diabetes (Parving HH, et al. N Engl J Med 2012;367:2204-13). Other trials which involved dual blockade of the renin-angiotensin may have contributed to the worse outcome with systolic BP <140 mmHg
Lonn EM, Bosch J, Lopez-Jaramillo P, et al. Blood-pressure lowering in intermediate-risk persons without cardiovascular disease. N Engl J Med 2016;374:2009-20. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27041480
In the HOPE-3 study, 12,705 participants at intermediate risk who did not have cardiovascular disease were randomized to receive either candesartan 16 mg/day plus hydrochlorothiazide 12.5 mg/day or placebo. There was no significant benefit of antihypertensive treatment overall, but in a prespecified subgroup analysis, subjects in the upper third of systolic BP (>143.5 mmHg) had significant benefits in cardiovascular outcomes
Thomopoulos C, Parati G, Zanchetti A. Effects of blood pressure lowering treatment in hypertension: 8. Outcome reductions vs. discontinuations because of adverse drug events - meta-analyses of randomized trials. J Hypertens 2016;34:1451-63. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27228434
Thomopoulos C, Parati G, Zanchetti A. Effects of blood-pressure-lowering treatment in hypertension: 9. Discontinuations for adverse events attributed to different classes of antihypertensive drugs: meta-analyses of randomized trials. J Hypertens 2016;34:1921-32. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27454050
These two publications are from a series of meta-analyses looking at adverse effects from antihypertensive drugs. They reported that the absolute treatment discontinuation excess disproportionally increased with larger BP reductions compared with the increase in outcome risk reduction. There was a greater relative excess of treatment discontinuations seen when the achieved systolic BP was below 130 mmHg and angiotensin receptor blockers were the only class of drugs associated with a significantly lower risk of adverse events
Other publications
- The SPRINT study challenges current clinical practice in blood pressure management. A randomized trial of intensive versus standard blood-pressure control. SPRINT Research Group. N Engl J Med 2015;373:2103-2116. The online version of this article is located at: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1511939
- Adherence with antihypertensive drug therapy and the risk of heart failure in clinical practice. Corrao G et al. Hypertension 2015;66:742-749. http://hyper.ahajournals.org/content/66/4/742.abstract
- Recommendations for improving and standardizing vascular research on arterial stiffness. A scientific statement from the American Heart Association. Townsend RR et al. Hypertension 2015;66:698-722. http://intl-hyper.ahajournals.org/content/66/3/698.extract
- Circulation Research published a Hypertension Compendium in its March 13, 2015 issue (Circ Res 2015;116:923-1095). This compendium was edited by G. Mancia and contains a series of excellent state-of-the-art reviews on different aspects of hypertension, including epidemiology, genetics, the renin–angiotensin–aldosterone system, the sympathetic nervous system, vascular structure and function, immune/inflammatory molecular mechanisms, metabolic factors, trials and new approaches in the treatment of hypertension. http://circres.ahajournals.org/content/116/6.toc
- Day-Night Dip and Early-Morning Surge in Blood Pressure in Hypertension : Prognostic Implications. Verdecchia P et al, Hypertension 2012 Jul;60(1):34-42
The online version of this article, along with updated information and services, is located at: http://hyper.ahajournals.org/content/60/1/34
- Catheter-Based Renal Sympathetic Denervation for Resistant Hypertension : Durability of Blood Pressure Reduction Out to 24 Months.
Symplicity HTN-1 Investigators. Hypertension. 2011 May;57(5):911-7 The online version of this article, along with updated information and services, is located at: http://hyper.ahajournals.org/content/57/5/911
- Reappraisal of European guidelines on hypertension management: a European Society of Hypertension Task Force document.
Mancia G et al. Journal of Hypertension. 27(11):2121-2158, November 2009.
http://journals.lww.com/jhypertension/Pages/collectiondetails.aspx?Topic...
- Dietary Sodium Intake and Cardiovascular Mortality: Controversy Resolved?
Alderman MH and Cohen HW. Am J Hypertension 2012; 25 (7):727-734.
http://www.nature.com/ajh/journal/v25/n7/pdf/ajh201252a.pdf
- Arterial Stiffness Is Associated With Carotid Atherosclerosis in Hypertensive Patients (The Campania Salute Network).
Casalnuovo G et al. Am J Hypertension 2012; 25 (7):739-745.
http://www.nature.com/ajh/journal/v25/n7/full/ajh201238a.html The optimal timing of antihypertensive medication administration for morning hypertension in patients with cerebral infarction.
Hosomi N et al. Hypertension Research 2012; 35: 720–724.
http://www.nature.com/hr/journal/v35/n7/pdf/hr201225a.pdf- Hunting for genes for hypertension: the Millennium Genome Project for Hypertension.
Tabara Y et al, Hypertension Research 2012; 35: 567–573.
http://www.nature.com/hr/journal/v35/n6/pdf/hr201241a.pdf
- Inflammation, blood pressure and cardiovascular disease: heading east. Commentary.
Conen D. J Hum Hypertens advance online publication, April 19, 2012.
http://www.nature.com/jhh/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/jhh20127a.pdf
The following 3 articles are about the relationships between obesity and hypertension
The Working Group on Obesity, Diabetes and the High Risk Patient of the European Society of Hypertension has produced a Consensus Document on the pathogenesis of obesity-induced hypertension discussing a number of protective and promoting factors.
- New developments in the pathogenesis of obesity-induced hypertension. Kotsis V et al. J Hypertens. 2015;33:1499-1508. Link to PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26103132
A large population study in middle-aged Chinese men and women showed that the visceral fat index (VFI) and percentage body fat (PBF) assessed by a multifrequency bioelectric impedance device were associated with a higher risk of hypertension and prehypertension, and the strongest association was with the amount of visceral fat (VFI) or the proportion of fat distributed viscerally (VFI/PBF ratio).
- Association of visceral and total body fat with hypertension and prehypertension in a middle-aged Chinese population. Wang Z et al. J Hypertens. 2015;33:1555-1562. Link to PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26103127
A study examined whether adiposity in later midlife is an independent predictor of accelerated stiffening of the aorta in the Whitehall II study participants. General adiposity by body mass index (BMI) and different measures of abdominal adiposity (waist circumference and waist:hip ratio) were both strong predictors of aortic stiffening measured as increase in pulse wave velocity (PWV) between baseline and follow-up after 4 years independent of other background factors. These findings suggest that both general and central adiposity are important and potentially modifiable determinants of arterial aging, and the authors estimated that the increase in PWV linked with high BMI could account for 12% of the projected increase in cardiovascular risk because of high BMI.
Adiposity, obesity, and arterial aging: longitudinal study of aortic stiffness in the Whitehall II cohort. Brunner EJ et al. Hypertension. 2015;66:294-300. Link to free article http://hyper.ahajournals.org/content/66/2/294.abstract