BOSTON, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- High blood pressure causes strokes in people with chronic kidney disease (CKD), but now U.S. doctors say that low blood pressure does this, too.
In fact, a new study done at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston found that, in CKD patients, stroke risk was more than doubled for those who had lower than normal blood pressure.
Daniel Weiner and his colleagues at Tufts were studying the effect of CKD and blood pressure on the risk of stroke.
They analyzed data on more than 20,000 Americans participating in a long-term study of heart disease risk factors and found that 7.6 percent had CKD, or slow, progressive loss of kidney function leading to dialysis or transplant. CKD has been linked to an increased risk of heart and blood vessel disease.
While stroke risk rose 18 percent with each 10 mm Hg increase in systolic blood pressure in all patients, CKD patients were at a 22 percent higher risk for stroke than those without the problem. What the study revealed was that, in CKD patients, stroke risk was more than doubled for those who had lower than normal blood pressure.
"This effect was most significant in individuals receiving drugs to lower blood pressure," said Weiner. "The fact that this was an observational study rather than a randomized, controlled trial precludes any comment about possible harm related to treating patients to lower blood pressure goals, but it's an area that may benefit from further investigation."
The research was published in the advance online issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology that became available today.
