Relationship To Heart Disease
Recent work suggests that a high pulse pressure is an important risk factor for heart disease. A meta-analysis in 2000, which combined the results of several studies of 8,000 elderly patients in all, found that a 10 mm Hg increase in pulse pressure increased the risk of major cardiovascular complications and mortality by nearly 20%. Heightened pulse pressure is also a risk factor for the development of atrial fibrillation. The authors of the meta-analysis suggest that this helps to explain the apparent increase in risk sometimes associated with low diastolic pressure, and warn that some medications for high blood pressure may actually increase the pulse pressure and the risk of heart disease.
Read more about this topic: Pulse Pressure
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