Seasonal Variation of Blood Pressure

Current study was designed to study variation of blood pressure with different seasons in Delhi, which has extremes of temperatures e.g.maximum temperature in summer crosses 40C and minimum temperature in winter falls close to 0C. Relationship of variation in blood pressure with meteorological factors has been analyzed.During summer,patients, particularly women often complain of symptoms such as weakness, giddiness and blackouts.These are often attributed by patients and even physicians to lowered blood pressure.Current study seeks to establish magnitude of this problem and analyse if there is an association of these symptoms with variation in blood pressure.The study shows significant increase in mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure during winter compared to summer.Results also show that the problem of summer associated symptoms is common but not associated with variation in blood pressure.The symptoms were not related to hyponatremia associated with heat exhaustion thus indicating mechanism other than lowered blood pressure to be responsible for these symptoms.Thus it highlights need for further research on this subject