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VA Study Finds Seasonal Differences in Blood Pressure

Weight goes up in winter and so does blood pressure

November 5, 2007

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The time of year can have an effect on your blood pressure, a large Veterans Affairs (VA) study finds.

VA researchers found that fewer people treated for high blood pressure return to normal pressure levels in the winter compared with those treated in the summer.

“The bottom line is that regardless of whether you’re in Anchorage, Alaska or San Juan, Puerto Rico, there is a difference in high blood pressure returning to normal in the winter compared to the summer,” said Ross D. Fletcher, M.D., the study’s lead author and chief of staff at the VA Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

The five-year study analyzed electronic health records from 15 VA hospitals in warmer and colder cities throughout the United States. Researchers identified 443,632 veterans with high blood pressure. Those who had readings of more than 140 mm Hg systolic or more than 90 mm Hg diastolic on three separate days were identified as hypertensive.

The study found a significant variation in every city, warmer or colder, in return to normal blood pressure in winter compared to summer.

The average significant difference in percent of patients returning to normal was 7.76 percent between the two seasons, based on patients’ blood pressure readings as recorded in their Electronic Health Record.

The average age of veterans in the study was 66 years. About 51 percent were Caucasian, 21 percent Hispanic and 27 percent black. Only 3.7 percent were female.

“San Juan is virtually equal to Anchorage, as blood pressure systematically worsens in the winter and improves in the summer,” Fletcher said. “We did not see the coldest city had the biggest change in blood pressure.”

The other 13 VA hospitals included those in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Fargo, Honolulu, Houston, west Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, Ore., and Washington, D.C.

Fletcher suggested that weight and exercise might play a role in these seasonal variations rather than southern or northern climate or the amount of light.

“There is a weight change that is significant,” Fletcher said. “People gain weight in the winter and lose weight in the summer. People tend to exercise more in the summer and less in the winter.”

He emphasized the importance of designing treatment strategies for patient’s high blood pressure to account for these seasonal variations, perhaps requiring increased anti-hypertensive intervention during the winter months.

VA hospitals in all cities showed improvement from the beginning to the end of the study. Improvement averaged about 4 percent per year in the VA hospital system overall.

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