Women under pressure

By Dr Franco

Happy new year from Colombia! Since ladies come always first, we start 2010 talking about women and the findings of the Nurses Health Study.

The Nurses Health Study is one of the largest and most influential epidemiological studies in the world. Conducted by investigators from Harvard University, this study started in 1976 with more than 120,000 nurses aged 30 to 55 years that have been followed every 2 years ever since. A second cohort, the Nurses Health Study II started in 1989 with over 110,000 registered nurses aged 27 to 44 years. These two studies have provided substantial information to improve the knowledge and understanding of women’s health and process of ageing.

Emanating from this second cohort, recent results have been published in the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) evaluating how hypertension develops in women and how dietary and lifestyle factors influence or prevent the appearance of hypertension in women.

Hypertension is a factor that generates great burden in women contributing to more excess deaths than any other preventable factor. Treatment of hypertension can be cumbersome as pharmacological interventions imply high investments and efforts and can have substantial adverse effects. Avoiding the appearance of hypertension is therefore an important strategy and dietary and lifestyle factors could hold the key to successful prevention as shown in this report.

The authors found that six lifestyle factors were important in lowering the risk of developing hypertension in women: not being overweight or obese, 30 minutes of daily physical activity, a healthy diet, modest alcohol intake, use of non-narcotic analgesics less than once per week, and intake of supplemental folic acid. Following these six factors could represent a 78% reduction in the risk of developing hypertension in the future while following 5 or just 4 factors a 72% or 58% lower risk.

The effects of healthy lifestyle (as indicated by this study) are not only of a large magnitude but also come with little adverse effects. Medicaments to treat hypertension on the other hand often come with deleterious side effects. Following a healthy lifestyle seems definitely the route to follow!

Reference:
Forman JP, Stampfer MJ, Curhan GC. Diet and lifestyle risk factors associated with incident hypertension in women. JAMA. 2009 Jul 22;302(4):401-11