Affiliation:
1. Department of Environmental Health Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Boston MA
2. Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep and Critical Care Medicine Section VA Boston Healthcare System Boston MA
3. Channing Division of Network Medicine Department of Medicine Brigham and Women's Hospital Boston MA
4. Harvard Medical School Boston MA
5. Department of Medicine Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease New York University School of Medicine New York NY
6. Leon H. Charney Division of Cardiology Department of Medicine New York University School of Medicine New York NY
7. VA Normative Aging Study Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System Boston MA
8. Department of Medicine Boston University School of Medicine Boston MA
Abstract
Background
Since solar activity and related geomagnetic disturbances modulate autonomic nervous system activity, we hypothesized that these events would be associated with blood pressure (BP).
Methods and Results
We studied 675 elderly men from the Normative Aging Study (Boston, MA) with 1949 BP measurements between 2000 and 2017. Mixed‐effects regression models were used to investigate the association of average 1‐day (ie, day of BP measurement) to 28‐day interplanetary magnetic field intensity, sunspot number, and a dichotomized measure of global geomagnetic activity (K
p
index) in 4‐day increments with diastolic and systolic BP. We adjusted for meteorological conditions and other covariates associated with BP, and in additional models adjusted for ambient air pollutants (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter ≤2.5 µm, black carbon, and particle number) and ambient particle radioactivity. There were positive associations between interplanetary magnetic field, sunspot number, and K
p
index and BP that were greatest with these exposures averaged over 16 through 28 days before BP measurement. An interquartile range increase of 16‐day interplanetary magnetic field and sunspot number and higher K
p
index were associated with a 2.5 (95% CI, 1.7‒3.2), 2.8 (95% CI, 2.1‒3.4), and 1.7 (95% CI, 0.8‒2.5) mm Hg increase, respectively, for diastolic BP as well as a 2.1 (95% CI, 0.7‒3.6), 2.7 (95% CI, 1.5‒4.0), and 0.4 (95% CI, −1.2 to 2.1) mm Hg increase, respectively, for systolic BP. Associations remained after adjustment for ambient air pollutants and ambient particle radioactivity.
Conclusions
Solar activity and solar‐driven geomagnetic disturbances were positively associated with BP, suggesting that these natural phenomena influence BP in elderly men.
Publisher
Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health)
Subject
Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine
Cited by
7 articles.
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