Blood Pressure Points
to Heart Trouble for Women

As blood pressure goes up, a woman's risk of a second heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular disaster also goes up, researchers reported in a rare heart study looking at women exclusively.

For each 10 points the top, or systolic blood pressure reading went up, a woman's heart risk went up 9 percent, the team at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston found.

"Our prospective data demonstrate that systolic blood pressure is a strong independent predictor of cardiovascular disease events among middle-aged and older women with known cardiovascular disease," said Dr. Peter Mason, who led the study.

His team studied 5,218 female health professionals with an average age of 62 who had already had one heart attack or had other known heart disease.

Writing in the journal Circulation, Mason's team said the increased risk started at a reading of 130 mm Hg, a level called "prehypertension." Officially, hypertension is diagnosed at a top blood pressure reading of 140.

"We found a strong continuous relationship between increasing blood pressure and the risk of secondary cardiovascular events in women, and that even borderline elevations in blood pressure are associated with an increased risk," Mason said in a statement.

Mason, now at Boston Medical Center, followed the women for an average of 6 1/2 years.

He said it may be important to lower blood pressure below 130 in women with known heart disease.