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WEDNESDAY, July 16 (HealthDay News) -- Nearly one in three Americans suffers from high blood pressure -- more than 73 million adults.

But half of them -- women -- face unique challenges in controlling their blood pressure.

For instance, women with high blood pressure are more likely to be obese and have high cholesterol levels. They're also less likely than men to meet target goals for their blood pressure. And they're also less likely than men to receive medications such as aspirin, blood pressure-lowering drugs or cholesterol-lowering drugs, compared to men, recent research found.

These findings add greater urgency to the American Heart Association's ongoing "Go Red for Women" campaign, which seeks to change the perception that high blood pressure and heart disease are "male" health threats.

Most people don't know that heart disease is the No. 1 killer of American women -- as well as men. An estimated 480,000 women die of cardiovascular disease every year, more than the total number of cardiovascular disease-related deaths in men, or the next four causes of death combined, according to the heart association.

Unchecked high blood pressure -- also known as hypertension -- can produce terrible systemic damage and disease. It can lead to a heart attack, stroke, heart failure, kidney damage, blindness and a host of other medical problems.

Despite this, a large segment of women aren't adequately addressing their hypertension.

"Only about 60 percent of women with high blood pressure are having it controlled," said Dr. Nieca Goldberg, medical director of New York University Medical Center's Women's Heart Program, and a spokeswoman for the "Go Red for Women" campaign. "When you bring your blood pressure down, you cut your stroke risk in half and risk of heart attack by 25 percent."

Part of the problem is that women tend to suffer from an increased systolic rate, said Dr. Daniel Jones, president of the American Heart Association.

Blood pressure is the force of the blood against artery walls when the heart beats and then rests. Measurement renders two numbers. Systolic pressure, the top number, is recorded when your heart beats and forces blood out to the body. Diastolic pressure is the bottom number, and is the minimum pressure that occurs when the heart relaxes between beats. The ideal blood pressure is below 120/80 mmHg, according to the heart association.

But, Jones added, "The systolic rate is more resistant to treatment through medication."

Goldberg believes that some women might be stopping their blood pressure medication without talking with their doctor, after suffering from side effects that can include insomnia, lethargy and depression.

"If the medication is a problem, we have many different medications that help," said Goldberg, author of Dr. Nieca Goldberg's Complete Guide to Women's Health.

Further complicating treatment is the perception of high blood pressure as a "man's disease," which might affect the intensity of care they receive, Goldberg said.

"Sometimes, the woman's needs aren't being met at the doctor's office," she said. "They need to ask the simple question, 'What is my blood pressure?' And if it seems a little elevated, they need to talk to a doctor about what to do to fix it."

Women also shouldn't ignore the lifestyle changes they can pursue that will lower their blood pressure, or help prevent it from rising in the first place, Jones said.

"They're not as easy to do as some things, but they are very powerful," he said.

Diet can have a big impact on high blood pressure. A recent study found that women 45 years old and older who ate low-fat diary foods were at lower risk of developing high blood pressure.

"Those [low-fat diary products] are great, because they have calcium, which is good for our bones, so there's more than one benefit," Goldberg said.

Reducing fat and salt intake is also helpful.

"When you're going to the market and buying prepared foods, purchase those that are grilled, not fried," Goldberg said. "You also should realize many condiments are very high in salt."

Quitting smoking and reducing the amount of alcohol you drink is also important for reducing your overall risk for heart attack and stroke.

On the horizon, researchers are developing a vaccine that could prove successful in moderating blood pressure. It works by inhibiting angiotensin II, a molecule that constricts blood vessels and raises blood pressure.

"The potential attractiveness of a vaccine is it might be a more convenient way to manage high blood pressure in some people," Jones said.

Researchers at the 2007 American Heart Association annual meeting discussed some early encouraging results, although Jones cautioned that the vaccine is still years away from use in patients. "People should not be anticipating this is something that would be clinically available anytime in the near future," he said. "It's not anywhere close to being tested by the FDA for use."

Until then, following a healthy lifestyle and sticking with a good medication are a woman's -- and man's -- best bet for beating back high blood pressure.

"We know that a diet that is low in sodium and high in fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy products is very useful in both preventing and treating high blood pressure," Jones said. "I always like to remind people of the importance of simple things in lifestyle that can make a difference."

More information

To learn more about the Go Red for Women campaign, visit the American Heart Association  .

WEDNESDAY, July 16 (HealthDay News) -- Updated findings from an analysis of existing research continue to suggest that the oft-touted monthly breast self-exam may actually do more harm than good.

There is no evidence that the practice actually decreases deaths from breast cancer while it may actually double the number of unnecessary biopsies in women who do the exam compared with women who don't.

"At present, screening by breast self-examination or physical examination [by a trained health worker] cannot be recommended," two of the study authors, Jan Peter Kosters and Peter Gotzsche of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, stated in the review.

The current review, published in the most recent issue of The Cochrane Library, updates and corroborates information from a 2003 review of studies.

The American Cancer Society revised its guidelines five years ago based on emerging evidence and no longer recommends monthly breast self-exams. The monthly exam is now considered "an option" for women starting in their 20s.

The current review included two studies of almost 400,000 women in Russia and China. Women who did self-exams had 3,406 biopsies compared with only 1,856 biopsies in the group that did not do the exams. Differences in biopsy rates did not translate into differences in breast cancer mortality.

The China study found that rates of mastectomy and lumpectomy (or "breast-conserving" surgery) were similar regardless of whether women were doing self-exams or not.

As always, however, women who detect any change in their breast need to consult a doctor.

More information

Visit the National Cancer Institute for more on breast cancer.

TUESDAY, July 15 (HealthDay News) -- If you've got a strong family history of food allergies or allergic asthma, you might want to think twice before munching a handful of nuts when you're pregnant.

That's because recent research has found that regular consumption of nut products during pregnancy raises the odds of having a child with asthma symptoms by nearly 50 percent.

The study, published in the July 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine found "consistent positive associations between maternal nut product consumption, such as peanut butter, during pregnancy and wheeze, dyspnea (shortness of breath), steroid use, doctor-diagnosed asthma and persistent wheeze in children from 1 to 8 years of age," said study author Saskia Willers, a doctoral candidate at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

As many as 4 percent of American children have food allergies, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Slightly more than 1 percent of people in the United States -- or about 3 million -- are allergic to peanuts or tree nuts.

Most allergies develop as a result of repeated "sensitization" to an allergen in susceptible individuals, and each time the body is exposed to the allergen, the reactions tend to increase. It's already recommended that children under 3 not be given nuts or nut products, because their immune systems are still developing and may be more susceptible to allergens, explained Dr. Jennifer Appleyard, chief of allergy and immunology at St. John Hospital and Medical Center in Detroit.

"If you say avoid nuts in children, and for nursing mothers because peanut protein can be transferred through milk, do we need to take it a step further and limit nuts during pregnancy?" said Appleyard.

To try to answer that question, Willers and her colleagues reviewed information gathered from interviews of more than 4,000 pregnant women -- 1,327 with a history of allergy or asthma and 2,819 with no such history. The women were asked about their diets, and their children were followed from birth to 8 years of age to assess whether or not diet impacted the risk of developing asthma.

They found no association between maternal consumption of vegetables, fish, eggs, milk or milk products and the development of asthma, according to the study. The researchers also found no association between rare or regular consumption of nuts and the development of asthma symptoms.

However, daily consumption of nut products increased the odds that a child would have wheezing by 42 percent, shortness of breath by 58 percent and steroid use to ease asthma symptoms by 62 percent, compared to children born to mothers who rarely consumed nuts. Overall, the odds of developing asthma symptoms for a child whose mother ate nuts daily were 47 percent higher, according to the study.

But, Willers said, it's too soon to recommend a complete nut ban during pregnancy. "The associations we found are pretty strong, only we are the first to find these effects, so they need to be confirmed by other studies before recommending the avoidance of peanuts and nuts during pregnancy," she said.

Appleyard agreed. "This subject definitely needs further investigation. And, if you can pass on the antibodies that cause nut allergy from mother to fetus, why not other allergies as well?" she asked.

However, she did suggest that women with a strong family history of food allergy may want to limit the amount of nut products they consume during pregnancy.

More information

To learn more about peanut allergy, visit the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network  .

THURSDAY, July 10 (HealthDay News) -- A postmenopausal woman who uses hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may boost her risk for gallbladder disease, researchers say, although the risk appears to vary depending on how she receives the hormones.

"For women who are using HRT, their risk of gallbladder disease is less if they use a patch or gel form of HRT rather than the tablet form of HRT," noted Dr. Bette Liu, a clinical epidemiologist at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

"There is evidence that is developing that the patch may have less negative effects than the pill. We need to make sure that we're talking about the menopausal hormone therapy patch, not the birth control patch -- there may be less adverse effects than when taking estrogen by mouth," said Dr. Patricia J. Sulak, professor of obstetrics/gynecology at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and an obstetrician/gynecologist with Scott & White.

According to Sulak, who was not involved in the study, hormone therapy can be taken non-orally in several ways, including gels (rubbing it on), the patch and even spraying it on.

Not only are patches and gels given at lower doses, but they bypass having to be metabolized through the liver, thus reducing any effect on the gallbladder, the authors explained. The gallbladder stores bile produced in the liver, and less estrogen collected in the bile could explain the reduced risk, the team noted.

The findings were published this week in the online edition of the British Medical Journal.

HRT is still taken by large numbers of women to relieve the symptoms of menopause -- despite evidence of various health risks, including heightened odds for breast cancer and stroke.

The risk of developing gallbladder disease also increases when a woman hits menopause, and experts have long known that HRT contributes to this risk. To date, however, no one has analyzed whether the risk varies depending on how HRT is administered. A recent study did find that the risk of blood clots was lower in women taking HRT via skin patches as opposed to pills.

In the new study, Liu and her colleagues looked at data on more than one million women who had participated in the Million Women Study in England and Scotland. The mean age of participants was 56, and they were followed for an average of six years.

Women currently using HRT were 64 percent more likely to be hospitalized for gallbladder disease, but they were only 17 percent more likely to be admitted if they were using gels or patches.

Higher doses of estrogen were associated with a higher risk than lower doses. The risk also decreased the longer the woman had been off of HRT, although there was still some risk a decade after discontinuing.

The risk seemed mainly confined to estrogen. Adding progesterone did not have a significant impact on the risk of gallbladder disease.

Estrogen implants involved a level of risk that fell between those faced by users of oral HRT and those faced by users of patches or gels.

Among women using HRT, one cholecystectomy (removal of the gallbladder) could be avoided for every 140 women using transdermal therapy rather than oral therapy over a five-year period, the team found.

According to the study, about 1.1 percent of middle-aged women in the U.K. who have never used HRT will end up having a cholecystectomy. That proportion rises to 1.3 percent among women using patches or gel and to 2 percent for women taking HRT in pill form.

"Most people will do fine with pills, but some patients who are prone to gallbladder disease or even blood clots may do better with the patch," Sulak said. "Not all women can tolerate the patch, however. They may have skin reactions, or the patch won't stay on."

More information

There's more on hormone replacement therapy at the Women's Health Initiative.