Could a Common Blood Test Predict Hypertension?

A blood test previously used to search for heart muscle damage following a heart attack could also be used to detect hypertension in patients long before it would be seen on blood pressure measurements.

According to researchers, people who show even subtle elevations in cardiac troponin T had a higher risk of developing hypertension within a few years. The test also identified patients at risk for left ventricular hypertrophy, a common effect from untreated high blood pressure.
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For the study, researchers evaluated blood samples from 5,479 patients who were enrolled in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study.

While participants did not exhibit a clinical diagnosis of hypertension at baseline, 27% had high-normal blood pressures.

Investigators discovered that patients with mild elevations (5 to 8 nanograms per deciliter) of troponin levels had a 13% higher rate of hypertension during follow-up compared to those with undetectable (<5 nanograms per deciliter) troponin levels.

Participants who displayed high troponin levels (9 to 13 nanograms per deciliter) had a 24% increased risk of hypertension manifestation, while patients with levels over 13 nanograms per deciliter were at a 40% greater risk of hypertension,

Within 6 years of the initial testing, participants with slightly elevated troponin levels (5 to 8 nanograms per deciliter) doubled their risk for developing a thickened heart muscle.

Further, those with levels of 9 to 13 nanograms per deciliter were 3 times as likely to develop a thickened heart muscle, and those with troponin levels >13 nanograms per deciliter had a fivefold risk of the heart muscle abnormality.

“Identifying those at risk for hypertension as well as those in the earliest stages of the disease would allow us to intervene much sooner, either with lifestyle changes or medication, before the condition develops fully and has had a chance to damage organs,” said John William McEvoy, MBBCh, MHS, a lead author of the study and assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The complete study was published in the September issue of Circulation.

-Michelle Canales Butcher

Reference:

Johns Hopkins Medicine. Common ‘heart attack’ blood test may predict future hypertension. August 2015. www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/common_heart_attack_blood_test_may_predict_future_hypertension. Accessed August 27, 2015.