Race, Blood Pressure, and Microvascular Function

Does pre-hypertension, or Stage 1 hypertension, have adverse effects on the microvasculature and the ability of blood vessels to vasodilate? In this episode, Associate Editor Nisha Charkoudian (U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine) interviews lead author Brett Wong (Georgia State University) and expert Anna Stanhewicz (University of Iowa) about the new study by Wong and co-authors, in which a local heating protocol on the skin was used to investigate whether race and/or blood pressure affect sensory nerve function. The authors found that both sensory nerve function and microvascular nitric oxide function were reduced in pre-hypertensive non-Hispanic black study participants compared to non-Hispanic white study participants. Even in the absence of overt cardiovascular disease, the work by Wong and co-authors detected changes in the mechanisms controlling blood flow. How do the racial differences observed in this study challenge the “one size fits all” concept of preventative cardiovascular healthcare? Listen now.

 

Brett J. Wong, Casey G. Turner, James T. Miller, Demetria C. Walker, Yesser Sebeh, Matthew J. Hayat, Jeffrey S. Otis, Arshed A. Quyyumi Sensory nerve-mediated and nitric oxide-dependent cutaneous vasodilation in normotensive and prehypertensive non-Hispanic blacks and whites Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol, published July 14, 2020. DOI: doi.org/10.1152/ajpheart.00177.2020