Blood pressure measurement, its importance in reducing vascular disease & remote patient monitoring

An article published in the prestigious journal Hypertension looked at following blood pressure over a decade and the reduction in heart attacks, strokes and deaths if you were able to keep blood pressure under control. It talked about extending your life by over four years and the preventing vascular disease from developing for at least five years.

The authors looked at multiple blood pressure trials and noted the difficulty in relying on one office visit measurement periodically. They too noticed that certain patients were always higher in the office than at home and noted the problems with home blood pressure monitors including trying to decide if they were accurate and being recorded correctly. The result was that whatever reading they obtained at your visit, when looked at over a 10-year period, influenced your survival and cardiac events.

We too have struggled with this issue in our office. We ask patients to bring in their home blood pressure equipment so we can correlate the readings they get in our office on our equipment and their equipment. Just last night a patient with no symptoms and feeling well took his blood pressure and found it elevated. Rather than contact me or his cardiologist he ran to the Emergency Room. He waited hours, had multiple tests and by that time his blood pressure lowered they referred him to his doctors without intervening at all.

When needed, we have a patient use a 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitor. They wear it on their arm like a blood pressure cuff and it inflates six times per hour during daytime and four times per hour during sleep while measuring their pressure. There is a small recording device worn on their belt. After 24 hours, it is returned to our office and we print out the readings and obtain averages to help us determine just what your blood pressure really is. The equipment has a diary so the patient can note when stressful events occur and we can correlate it with the readings. The minor drawbacks to the equipment are its bulkiness, the need to keep it dry and the disturbance to sleep it causes as the cuff inflates and deflates.

To improve measurements, as well as capture other health metrics, we are introducing a remote monitoring smart wristband. We have identified a vendor who will supply you with the high-tech wrist band at no out-of-pocket expense to you. The wristband interacts with your iPhone or android phone.

The device measures and captures pulse, heart rhythm, blood pressure, blood oxygen level, and steps.  It even has built-in fall detection. The 2021 model, which will be introduced in a few months, has an EKG component to help us follow patients who get dizzy, faint or have documented heart issues. It will also capture body temperature. There is an optional blood glucose sensor monitoring device. The wristband is water resistant so you may shower with it.

Due to the Pandemic, and development of tele-health, Medicare pays for the monitoring if you wear the device a minimum of 16 days each month. Patients are asked to identify emergency contacts so that if you fall or if you have an arrhythmia, abnormal blood pressure, abnormal blood sugar, the monitoring call center contacts your emergency contact on record.

Your physician can view all the data on our computers. Certain private insurances pay for these services as well as Medicare. I will start wearing one and my wife will as well.

I will personally discuss this with each of you whom I feel will benefit from wearing the wristband as remote monitoring is proven to reduce hospital admissions and ER visits. If you have a chronic condition, disease or certain risk factors; it’s likely I will encourage you to wear the band.

Some patients have asked if the band has a panic button for you to push if you feel you need to such as after a fall. The technology senses if you fell and have not gotten up or if you are ill and calls your emergency contacts but it does not have a unique panic button to push.

We look forward to introducing this new remote high technology to improve your health, safety and peace of mind.

Inflammation and Vascular Disease

I was privileged to hear Bradley Bale, MD and Amy Doneen, MSN, ARNP talk about the development of coronary artery disease and cerebrovascular disease in patients with low or few cardiac risk factors.  They cited American Heart Association studies looking at groups of men and women between ages 45 and 65 who have their first heart attack or stroke despite being in compliance with suggested lipid and blood pressure guidelines. They pointed out that the first Myocardial Infarct or Stroke occurred in 88% of women who met lipid guidelines and 66 % of men.  These are people who do not smoke, do not have untreated or uncontrolled lipid levels, are not diabetics and who lead an active life style.  They asked “why”?

Dr. Bale and Ms. Doneen work with the well respected cardiovascular Center of Excellence at the Cleveland Clinic program in Ohio, and believe that inflammation is the root of the problem.  They believe that soft plaque composed of lipids and other cells lurks beneath the endothelial cells lining blood vessels. In the presence of inflammatory stimulants, this soft plaque ruptures suddenly through the endothelial level into the blood stream. When it comes in contact with the blood flowing through the vessels the body believes we are bleeding and cut and chemical mediators are released that initiate the formation of a clot. When this clot occurs in a small coronary artery we have a heart attack or myocardial infarction or precipitate a lethal irregular heartbeat. When this clot occurs in the blood vessels of the brain, we have an acute stroke or cerebrovascular accident.

The key to prevention in the so called low risk patient is to detect the inflammation in advance, and treat it. They are firm believers in performing B Mode Duplex ultrasounds of the carotid arteries in the neck to look for the presence of soft plaque beneath the endothelial cell lining. This soft plaque is distinctly different from the safe but calcified plaque we can see on CT scans used for cardiac scoring studies.  They couple this imaging study with a series of complex blood tests which identify inflammation. These include a myeloperoxidase level, the Lp-PLA2 level, the urine microalbumen to creatinine ratio, a F2-IsoPs level and the cardiac specific CRP level.

These tests and studies in combination with a traditional history and exam, sugar and lipid levels and EKG can help us identify those “low risk” patients who actually are high risk for a heart attack or stroke. The cause of the inflammation is often difficult to spot and may be in your mouth with dental or periodontal disease or in your joints with inflammatory arthritis.  Patients with excellent dental hygiene and normal appearing gums may harbor specific inflammatory bacteria that put them at risk. While this seems a bit forward thinking, remember we once questioned the research that showed that bacteria (H Pylori) caused gastric ulcers and intestinal bleeding.

I have begun instituting the inflammatory blood marker panels in my practice. Labs are sent to the Cleveland HeartLab for this purpose. I will be initiating periodic carotid ultrasound studies for the appropriate patients in the coming year.

It is often difficult for clinicians to distinguish snake oil sold for profit from cutting edge science. I have tried to spare my patients from worthless but profit driven products. I am convinced the Cleveland Clinic is just ahead of the rest of us in offering these services and I will make them available to the appropriate patients and will do it in a financially structured manner that does not add out of pocket cost to the patient. It’s not about adding another profitable income stream to the practice. It’s about identifying individuals who shouldn’t have a heart attack or stroke before they do.

Lancet Study Emphasizes Long Term Benefit and Safety of Statin Use

Richard Bulbulia, MD, of the Heart Protection Study Group reported in the Lancet that statin medications are safe and effective over long periods of time.  They looked at 20,536 patients at high risk for vascular events. They studied patients who were between 40 and 80 years old. These patients were randomized to one group receiving Simvastatin (Zocor) daily at the 40 mg dose or placebo for 5.3 years. They were then followed for another six years during which both groups received the statin.

Researchers found that during the initial 5.3 years of the study there was a 23% decrease in major vascular events and an 18% reduction in vascular mortality in the Simvastatin treated group.

They also looked at complications of therapy over the eleven year period and concluded, “Reassuringly, there was no evidence that any adverse effect on particular causes of non–vascular mortality or major morbidity, including site-specific cancer, was emerging during this prolonged follow-up period.”  In an editorial in the same edition, Payal Kohli, MD and Christopher Cannon, MD of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston said the results “provide contemporary and confirmatory evidence that extended use of statins is safe with respect to possible risk of cancer and non-vascular mortality.”

It is noted that the dosages used are higher than what the FDA currently recommends for Simvastatin due to the risk of muscle injury at higher doses. Despite that, the Lancet editorialists concluded that “concerns should be put to rest and doctors should feel reassured about the long-term safety of this life saving treatment for patients at increased cardiovascular risk.”

Strolling After Dinner Wards Off Peripheral Arterial Vascular Disease Risk

Healthy lifestyles with excellent food choices and regular physical activity have been encouraged as the secret to a long and healthy life for years.  The U.S Department of Health and Human Services has promoted and encouraged every adult to get up to 90 minutes of exercise per day to stay healthy.  This type of time commitment is difficult for many active working adults to achieve.

In an article published recently in the Journal of Vascular Surgery, Stanford researchers point out that you just might be able to protect yourself against peripheral arterial vascular disease with a much more modest evening stroll. They noted that “a lifetime of even light exercise not only protects the heart but also the legs, reducing the risk of peripheral arterial disease (PAD).”

According to John P. Cooke, M.D., PhD of Stanford University Medical Center, a sedentary lifestyle predicted a 46% higher risk of peripheral arterial disease compared with a lifetime of recreational activity of any intensity. The biggest gains in PAD protection came in people who went from virtually no physical activity to minimal activity. “Even light activity, such as strolling, is enough to protect against PAD.” According to Dr. Cooke “ Get up off the couch, go for a walk, and you will be less likely to have problems in the future.”

Cooke and his group at Stanford looked at 1,381 patients and noted that inactive patients were nearly twice as likely to have PAD as those who had active lives. While inactivity is a risk factor in developing PAD other controllable risk factors exist and should be modified. These would include tobacco use, elevated blood sugars and elevated triglyceride levels. Once individuals develop narrowing of the peripheral arteries producing pain on exertion called claudication, their activity becomes limited by the pain.

The message is clear.  Stop smoking and start walking – even if the walk is a slow relaxing stroll.