Effects of weather and heliophysical conditions on emergency ambulance calls for elevated arterial blood pressure.

Jone Vencloviene,Paulius Dobozinskas,Ruta Babarskiene,Kristina Lopatiene,Gintare Sakalyte,Nerijus Mikelionis

doi:10.3390/ijerph120302622

Abstract

We hypothesized that weather and space weather conditions were associated with the exacerbation of essential hypertension. The study was conducted during 2009–2010 in the city of Kaunas, Lithuania. We analyzed 13,475 cards from emergency ambulance calls (EACs), in which the conditions for the emergency calls were made coded I.10–I.15. The Kaunas Weather Station provided daily records of air temperature (T), wind speed (WS), relative humidity, and barometric pressure (BP). We evaluated the associations between daily weather variables and daily number of EACs by applying a multivariate Poisson regression. Unfavorable heliophysical conditions (two days after the active-stormy geomagnetic field or the days with solar WS > 600 km/s) increased the daily number of elevated arterial blood pressure (EABP) by 12% (RR = 1.12; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.04–1.21); and WS ≥ 3.5 knots during days of T < 1.5 °C and T ≥ 12.5 °C by 8% (RR = 1.08; CI 1.04–1.12). An increase of T by 10 °C and an elevation of BP two days after by 10 hPa were associated with a decrease in RR by 3%. An additional effect of T was detected during days of T ≥ 17.5 °C only in females. Women and patients with grade III arterial hypertension at the time of the ambulance call were more sensitive to weather conditions. These results may help in the understanding of the population’s sensitivity to different weather conditions.

Highlights

Arterial hypertension (AH) is one of the main risk factors of cardiovascular diseases and unfavorable prognosis
Because literature data suggests the influence of air temperature on arterial blood pressure (ABP), we evaluated the effect of other factors at four different air temperature intervals whose margins were set depending on the number of emergency ambulance calls (EAC) changes during the 24-hour period
The associations of air temperature and seasonality with the daily number of EAC for EABP found in our study correspond with the findings of previous studies: lower air temperature was associated with increased blood pressure [5,21,22]; negative associations were found between daily apparent temperature and emergency room visits for hypertension [23]

Summary

Introduction

Arterial hypertension (AH) is one of the main risk factors of cardiovascular diseases and unfavorable prognosis. Patients with elevated arterial blood pressure are frequently found to have cardiac dysfunctions or structural abnormalities (e.g., systolic and diastolic dysfunction or left ventricular hypertrophy), and the progression of the condition leads to coronary artery atherosclerosis, heart failure, and an increased risk of arrhythmias and sudden death [1]. Together with the aging process, hypertension is the main risk factor contributing to the increase in cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in postmenopausal women, with a prevalence of around 60% in women older than 65 years. The high prevalence of hypertension in older women is largely due to the progressive stiffening of the arterial structure which accompanies the aging process in both sexes. Postmenopausal hypertension fosters the development of left ventricular hypertrophy and is the main factor contributing to coronary artery disease, chronic heart failure and stroke in older women [2]

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