New research has conclusively found that long-term exposure to high blood pressure increases the risk of heart valve disease, with significant implications for clinical practice guidelines and health management.
“Clinical practice guidelines currently make little reference to preventative strategies for major valvular heart diseases, but this study highlights that high blood pressure should be considered a major risk factor, much as it is for heart attacks, stroke and other cardiovascular conditions,” said Lead Researcher Milad Nazarzadeh, of The George Institute for Global Health, UK and Oxford Martin School’s Deep Medicine programme at the University of Oxford.
“A few earlier studies suggested that experiencing high blood pressure is associated with an increased risk of valvular heart disease, but whether the observed associations were causal was uncertain. In this study, we have expanded upon previous work and confirm that exposure to high blood pressure substantially increases the chances of major valvular disease, including aortic stenosis, aortic regurgitation and mitral regurgitation.”
The findings are from a study of half a million men and women in the UK aged between 40 to 96 years from the UK Biobank study.
The study, published in the JAMA Cardiology journal today (10 July), was supported by the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre.
The research team used a state-of-the-art gene-based method called Mendelian randomisation to prove this causal link. Since birth, we all either have genes that are known to be associated with a propensity for normal or high blood pressure in later life.
Researchers were therefore able to group study participants based on their genetic blood pressure characteristics and then directly compare outcomes in terms of risk of major valvular diseases in the knowledge that this risk was solely related to blood pressure and not to any other factors.
The findings reveal that:
- Each 20 mmHg increase in systolic blood pressure roughly equates to a threefold increase in the odds of developing aortic stenosis, a condition in which the valve that controls how blood is pumped from the heart to the main artery doesn’t open fully.
- A similar pattern of association was observed for two other major heart valve conditions, aortic regurgitation and mitral regurgitation.
Patients with heart valve disease may suffer symptoms such as irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath, fatigue, fainting and dizziness.
The new research provides further evidence of the importance of controlling high blood pressure, and doing so at the earliest opportunity, to limit the time that individuals are exposed to the condition.
As well as the Oxford BRC, the study was funded by the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford, the UKRI’s Global Challenges Research Fund, and by the British Heart Foundation.
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