Wearable catches hidden nighttime hypertension cause — SkimNews
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- University of Bristol and University of Manchester researchers found that primary aldosteronism patients experience hormone production bursts both day and night, with the nocturnal surges invisible to standard testing — a condition that may affect up to 1 in 5 people with high blood pressure.
- The wearable U-RHYTHM device, developed at the University of Bristol and spun out to Dynamic Therapeutics in 2023, sampled hormones from participants' skin every 20 minutes over 24 hours during a proof-of-concept study of 60 patients in Bristol, Bergen, Stockholm, and Athens.
- Aldosterone was not consistently elevated in primary aldosteronism patients — even some severe cases dropped below standard diagnostic thresholds — with the hormone instead showing repeated nocturnal secretion bursts rather than constant high levels.
- The nighttime hormone spikes were especially pronounced in patients with unilateral primary aldosteronism (one adrenal gland affected) and disappeared after surgical removal of the affected gland, confirming the bursts were directly linked to the disease.
- Published in Science Translational Medicine, the research suggests diagnosis may shift from single time-point blood tests toward tracking hormone rhythms over time, particularly overnight patterns that current guidelines overlook.
Why it matters: For the estimated up to 1 in 5 hypertension patients whose high blood pressure stems from primary aldosteronism — a treatable and sometimes surgically curable condition — diagnosis is routinely missed because current tests run during waking hours miss the disease's nocturnal signature. A 60-patient proof-of-concept across four European cities now demonstrates a wearable could enable at-home 24-hour hormone profiling that catches what single blood draws cannot, potentially preventing heart attacks and strokes tied to delayed diagnosis.
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