The effect of birth season on diurnal variation of blood pressure in hypertensive patients
Abstract
Background. Birth season has been found to be related to cardiovascular disorders, but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between birth season and diurnal variation in blood pressure (BP) parameters in hypertensive patients.
Material and methods. We enrolled 194 patients. The date of birth was recorded with the season of birth determined as winter (December-February), spring (March-May), summer (June-August) or autumn (September-November). All patients underwent 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) for evaluation of dipper or non-dipper status. We searched for the relationship between birth season and non-dipper status and other ABPM parameters.
Results. 93 patients were classified into the dipper hypertensive group and 101 patients were in the non-dipper hypertensive group. We did not find any association between non-dipper status and birth season in hypertensive patients (p = 0.517). However, we found a significant relationship between diurnal variation in BP and birth season. This difference was observed between winter and spring season. We found a significant relationship between birth season and 24-hour diastolic BP, awake diastolic BP, sleep diastolic BP and sleep mean BP (p = 0.035, p = 0.037, p = 0.036, p = 0.032, respectively). These ABPM parameters were lower in patients born in winter than in those born in spring.
Conclusion. Birth season was found to be related to diurnal variation in blood pressure in hypertensive patients. Hypertensive individuals born in winter had lower blood pressure than those born in spring.
Keywords: birth seasonblood pressurediurnal variationhypertensionwinter
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