Reports on the white coat hypertension in which a person's blood
pressure is normal most of the time but suddenly rises when they see a
physician. Reverse condition suffered by other patients in which their
blood pressure drops in a medical setting resulting in the masking of a
possible cardiovascular condition.
By
Peter Doskoch, published on September 01, 1996
HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE has been labeled the "silent killer" because so
many of us are unaware we have it. But now it appears that hypertension
isn't just quiet--it's devious.
It's long been known that some people suffer "white coat
hypertension": their blood pressure is normal most of the time, but
suddenly rises when they see a physician. Recently psychologist Kevin
Larkin, Ph.D., found that some folks have the reverse condition: their
blood pressure drops in a medical setting, masking a possible
cardiovascular condition. Larkin, an associate professor at West Virginia
University, calls this "white coat normotension."
Larkin and his team followed 64 volunteers over the course of a
day, taking their blood pressure every 30 minutes. To his surprise, 11 of
the 32 people with normal blood pressure at the clinic showed markedly
elevated readings once they left the medical setting. Their blood
pressure rose, on average, from a healthy 128 over 80 at the doctor's
office to 147 over 96 in the real world well into the range cardiologists
consider borderline hypertensive.
Larkin suspects that normotensives deceptively low blood pressure
at the doctor's may be a by-product of their fast-paced lives. So
stressed are they, he suggests, that office visits may actually seem like
a vacation. "It's the only time they're relaxed," he says.
Preliminary psychological data indicate that white coat
normotensives aren't much different from the rest of us, although they do
smoke and drink more--and, so far, nearly all of them are men. What
matters most, however, is that they may also be at risk for heart
disease, stroke, and other hazards of hypertension--despite deceptively
clean bills of health.
PHOTO (COLOR): Club "med": a visit to the doctor can feel like a
vacation.
Tags:
30 minutes,
associate professor,
club med,
course of a day,
environment,
heart,
hypertension,
low blood pressure,
medical,
office,
paced lives,
photo color,
silent killer
