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Retinal vessel changes may predict hypertension, study finds
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Structural microvascular changes may predict the development of severe hypertension independent of other risk factors, a large cohort study suggests. Further, these retinal changes may be a more stable measurement of risk than blood pressure, which can vary over time, the study authors noted.
Paul Mitchell, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Sydney, Australia, analyzed retinal images from participants in the Blue Mountains Eye Study, a large population-based study of 3,654 Sydney residents. Eighty-two percent of the participants were more than 49 years old.
Based on blood pressure measurements, the participants were identified as normal, high-normal (systolic between 121 and 139 and diastolic between 81 and 89 mm Hg), mild hypertensive (systolic between 140 and 159 and diastolic between 90 and 99 mm Hg) or severely hypertensive (systolic higher than 160 mm Hg and diastolic higher than 100 mm Hg).
A total of 1,982 participants were identified with high-normal or mild hypertension. At the 5-year follow-up, 1,319 returned. Of those, 390 (29.6%) had progressed to severe hypertension, the researchers noted.
While changes in the arterioles predicted hypertension regardless of age, “the association was even stronger in patients younger than 65,” Dr. Mitchell said in a press release from the American Heart Association.
After accounting for several risk factors, the researchers found that people with the narrowest retinal vessels were 2.6 times more likely to develop severe high blood pressure than those with the widest vessels, according to an item from Reuters Health.
The study is published in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association.