Relative and Combined Prognostic Importance of On-Treatment Mean and Visit-to-Visit Blood Pressure Variability in ONTARGET and TRANSCEND Patients.

Unlabelled: In 28 790 patients recruited for the ONTARGET (Ongoing Treatment Alone and in Combination With Ramipril Global End Point Trials) and TRANSCEND (Telmisartan Randomized Assessment Study in ACE Intolerant Subjects With Cardiovascular Disease) trials, we investigated the prognostic value for cardiovascular events (primary outcome) of (1)on-treatment visit-to-visit systolic blood pressure (SBP) variability versus mean SBP and (2) the 2 measures together. SBP variability was measured by the coefficient of variation (CV) of mean SBP to which it was unrelated. Confounders such as variable time and number of visits from which to calculate SBP-CV were avoided by using the same number of visits at identical times in all patients.

Music and the heart.

Emeritus Professor of Cardiology Peter Sleight discusses his observations on how music can affect heart rate variability and life expectancy.

Healthy eating and reduced risk of cognitive decline: A cohort from 40 countries.

Objective: We sought to determine the association of dietary factors and risk of cognitive decline in a population at high risk of cardiovascular disease.

Methods: Baseline dietary intake and measures of the Mini-Mental State Examination were recorded in 27,860 men and women who were enrolled in 2 international parallel trials of the ONTARGET (Ongoing Telmisartan Alone and in Combination with Ramipril Global Endpoint Trial) and TRANSCEND (Telmisartan Randomised Assessment Study in ACE Intolerant Subjects with Cardiovascular Disease) studies. We measured diet quality using the modified Alternative Healthy Eating Index.