Fibroids May Be Associated With High Blood Pressure
I've heard about the many problems which may be caused by high blood pressure in both men and women. Hypertension is especially worrisome both when trying to conceive and in pregnancy. Here is another interesting association between high blood pressure and fibroids. It's especially worthy of note to me because when I worked in the corporate pressure cooker, I did frequently have high blood pressure readings and I had fibroids (which I later had removed). Also interesting is that since I quit my high stress job years ago, I've always had normal gynecological exams (even though fibroids can recur). Fibroids, in some cases can lead to fertility problems as well.Read more:
High Blood Pressure May Predict Fibroids, Docs Claim
by John C. Martin (www.fertilityneighborhood.com)
From the article:
Fibroids are common among women of reproductive age. Estimates are that as many as 25 percent of women in the United States have symptoms that suggest they may have fibroids. These non-cancerous tumors grow within the uterine wall, and appear either as a single tumor or in clusters.
Symptoms include heavy bleeding or painful periods, bleeding between periods, a feeling of fullness in the lower abdomen, a need to urinate often, painful sex, lower back pain, and reproductive problems like infertility or recurrent miscarriages.2
Though fibroids aren't unusual, Rosalind Wright, MD, an assistant professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a team of researchers wrote that little is known about what factors underlie their development. But high blood pressure may be a culprit, they hypothesized. "Elevated diastolic blood pressure may increase fibroid risk though uterine smooth muscle injury, not unlike atherosclerosis," Wright and her colleagues wrote.
How did the researchers make that link? It's well known that people with high blood pressure are at increased risk of developing atherosclerosis, a disease characterized by hardening and narrowing of the arteries due to the formation of plaque.3 These lesions of plaque are made of fatty substances, cholesterol, cellular waste products and calcium, among other things.4 In high blood pressure, studies have suggested that abnormal changes occur in the smooth muscle cells that line the interior of arteries.3 Smooth muscle cells also make up the uterine wall.








