Self-reported adherence to physical activity recommendations compared to the IPAQ interview in patients with hypertension.

BACKGROUND: Physical activity (PA) is recommended as adjuvant therapy to control blood pressure (BP). The effectiveness of simple recommendations is not clear. We aimed to assess the agreement between self-report of adherence to PA in clinical routine and International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) interview and its association with BP control. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted with hypertensive outpatients. Adherence to recommendation to PA was assessed by the physician and IPAQ interview. A cutoff of 150 minutes/week was used to classify active or nonactive patients. High sitting time was considered >4 hours/day. A total of 127 individuals (SBP 144.9±24.4 mmHg/DBP 82.0±12.8 mmHg) were included. RESULTS: A total of 69 subjects (54.3%) reported to be active to their physician, whereas 81 (63.8%) were classified as active by IPAQ (6.3% active in leisure time PA). Kappa test was 0.22 (95% CI, 0.06-0.37). The rate of BP control was 45.7%. There was no association with the reported PA assessed by both methods nor with sitting time. Our results demonstrated poor agreement between self-report adherence and IPAQ interview, and neither evaluation was associated with BP control. CONCLUSION: Our findings underpin evidences that a simple PA recommendation has low association with BP control in clinical settings.

Long-term effectiveness of non-drug recommendations to treat hypertension in a clinical setting.

BACKGROUND: Nonpharmacological interventions have been efficacious to control blood pressure (BP) in clinical trials, but their long-term effectiveness in clinical practice was still not documented. METHODS: This is a prospective cohort study of 825 patients who received repeated nonpharmacological recommendations to treat hypertension. The outcomes were BP change and rate of BP control by pattern of adherence (informed by the patients) to the recommendations to follow low-salt and low-calorie diets and to do physical activities. RESULTS: Patients were followed for 23.1 ± 8.4 months. Between group deltas of BP change in patients with and without adherence to the low-salt diet, adjusted for baseline BP, body mass index (BMI), age, and number of drugs in use, were 5.1 (95% confidence interval: 1.7-8.6) mm Hg for systolic (P = 0.003) and 2.1 (0.2-3.9) mmHg for diastolic BP (P = 0.02). For adherence to low-calorie diet, the deltas were 6.6 (2.9-10.2) mm Hg (P < 0.001) and 2.0 (0.1-3.9) mm Hg (P = 0.045). Adherence to physical activities was not associated with a BP-lowering effect. Relative risks for a fall of 10 mm Hg in systolic or 5 mm Hg in diastolic BP, with adjustment for confounding, were 0.69 (95% confidence interval: 0.55-0.87) for adherence to the low-salt diet, 0.83 (0.66-1.05) for low-calorie diet, and 0.99 (0.79-1.24) for exercise. CONCLUSIONS: Adherence to low-salt and low-calorie diets is associated with clinically relevant long-term BP reduction and better hypertension control in a clinical setting.

Prevalence of resistant hypertension in non-elderly adults: prospective study in a clinical setting.

BACKGROUND: In face of variable definitions and sampling criteria, the real prevalence of resistant hypertension in a clinical setting is unknown. OBJECTIVE: We investigated the prevalence of true resistant hypertension in an outpatient hypertension clinic. METHODS: True resistant hypertension was diagnosed when white coat phenomenon, lack of compliance and secondary hypertension were excluded in patients with blood pressure ≥ 140/90 mmHg in two consecutive visits, despite to be using three blood pressure-lowering agents, including a diuretic. RESULTS: In the total, 606 patients, with 35 to 65 years of age, mostly women, with BP of 156.8 ± 23.8 mmHg by 91.9 ± 15.6 mmHg and a BMI of 29.7 ± 5.9 Kg/m² were sequentially evaluated. One hundred and six patients using three BP drugs had uncontrolled blood pressure (17.5% of the whole sample) in the first visit. Eighty-six patients (81% of the patients with uncontrolled BP in the first evaluation) returned for the confirmatory evaluation. Twenty-five had controlled BP, 21 had evidence of low adherence to treatment, 13 had white coat phenomenon and 9 had secondary hypertension, leaving only 18 patients (20.9% of those uncontrolled in the confirmatory visit and 3% of the whole sample) with true resistant hypertension. Considering patients with secondary hypertension as cases of resistant hypertension, the prevalence of resistant hypertension increased to 4.5%. CONCLUSION: The frequency of patients with true resistant hypertension in non-elderly patients is low in a clinical setting, and is not substantially increased with the inclusion of patients with secondary hypertension.

Síndrome da ardência bucal, correlações fisiopatológicas, medicamentosas: revisão de literatura

A síndrome da Ardência Bucal (SAB) é uma condição onde a ausência de sinais encontrado na maioria dos casos, dificulta seu diagnóstico. Os objetivos desse trabalho são classificar os mecanismos fisiopatológicos da SAB, estabelecendo uma opção de tratamento

The syndrome of burning Bucal (SAB) is a condition where the absence of signs found in most cases, its diagnosis difficult. In order to classify the pathophysiology of SAB, and the search for their treatment, are the main goals of this work

Does the blood pressure-lowering effect of statins contribute to their beneficial cardiovascular effects?

Not all cardiovascular protection provided by statins is explained by their beneficial effects on lipoproteins. Old (e.g., clofibrate) and new (e.g., torcetrapib and ezetimibe) agents, with similar or more intense beneficial effect over lipoproteins, do not reproduce the beneficial effects of statins. Besides their anti-inflammatory and other pleiotropic effects, a blood pressure-lowering effect could be an additional mechanism of cardiovascular protection of statins. Large trials of statins in the primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease did not report an effect on blood pressure, but the use of blood pressure-lowering agents was left to the discretion of physicians during the trial. Post hoc analyses of small trials and a meta-analysis of some of them have suggested that statins could lower systolic blood pressure by approximately 4 mmHg, particularly in patients with high blood pressure. Most studies, however, had small samples and were not blinded. Others had a cross-over or observational design. The overall view of these studies rules out a substantial blood pressure-lowering effect of statins. An effect restricted to subjects with high blood pressure could ultimately derive from the anti-inflammatory effect of statins, since higher levels of C-reactive protein are associated with higher blood pressure. An unequivocal demonstration of an antihypertensive effect of statins, however, is still lacking, and a randomized trial with enough power to evaluate blood pressure variation in a large range of blood pressure values is required to demonstrate whether statins definitely have an antihypertensive effect.