Blood Pressure

PARIS — A strategy of tailored behavioral communication combined with smartphone technology implemented by community health workers conferred improvements in linkage to care for patients with elevated BP, but did not appear to yield a statistically significant improvement in BP reduction.

PARIS — A comprehensive care model that integrates nonphysician health workers, primary care physicians and family members, and provides free medications, contributed to a more than 40% reduction in CVD risk and increased BP control by twofold, according to new data from the HOPE 4 trial.

PARIS — Lifelong genetic exposure to lower systolic BP and lower LDL levels was linked with lower CV risk, according to data presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress.

The presence of glaucoma was significantly associated with increased nighttime BP, according to a study published in JAMA Ophthalmology.

IV infusion serelaxin in patients hospitalized with acute HF did not improve CV mortality at 180 days or worsening HF at 5 days when compared with placebo in the RELAX-AHF-2 trial.

Black adults with higher daytime and nighttime systolic BP may have an increased risk for CVD events and all-cause mortality, regardless of BP measured in clinic.

HOUSTON — Hispanic men with type 2 diabetes who attended a 4-week diabetes education pilot program developed around car culture, called Diabetes Garage, experienced modest improvements in weight, blood pressure and HbA1c, according to study data presented at the American Association of Diabetes Educators annual meeting.

Patients with hypertension whose target systolic BP was less than 120 mm Hg had a greater decrease in total brain volume and a smaller increase in cerebral white matter lesion volume compared with those whose target was less than 140 mm Hg, according to results from the SPRINT MIND trial published in JAMA.

Patients who had sustained hypertension in midlife to late life and those with midlife hypertension and late-life hypotension had an increased risk for dementia later in life compared with patients with normal BP in midlife and late life, according to a study published in JAMA.

Among the top stories in cardiology last week were a study that found the use of a novel smartphone-based technology to measure blood pressure fell within 5 mm Hg of reference measurements in adults who were normotensive and the FDA designating Abbott’s product recall of an implantable cardioverter defibrillator as a class 1 recall.