Variable blood pressure can mean stroke risk

Findings suggest current treatments for hypertension need revision

LONDON - People with occasional spikes in their blood pressure could be at higher risk of having a stroke than those with regularly high blood pressure, new studies said Friday.

In four articles published in the medical journals Lancet and Lancet Neurology, European researchers suggest current guidelines for treating people with high blood pressure need to be revised.

In one of the studies, Peter Rothwell of the Stroke Prevention Research Unit at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, Britain, tracked about 8,000 patients who had had a heart attack. They found patients who had consistently variable blood pressure rates were at least six times more likely to have a stroke than those with regularly high