FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The American Heart Association reported earlier this year that rates of high blood pressure among women had increased from 17 percent to 22 percent between the early 1990s and the early 2000s. The study cited by the association also found that, in every state, women had higher uncontrolled hypertension prevalence rates than men did.

Heidi Kluess, an assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of Arkansas, has received a grant of $82,000 from the National Institute on Aging to study how the sympathetic nervous system controls blood flow and blood pressure in women as they age. The grant will allow Kluess to collect pilot data to support a larger grant proposal for research that she hopes could someday reduce women’s susceptibility to high blood pressure. The National Institute on Aging is a part of the National Institutes of Health.

Kluess, who joined the faculty of the College of Education and Health Professions in 2007, is taking a new approach in her research: she’s examining the role played by a compound called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, that transports energy within cells for metabolism.

“This will be the first time that a novel ATP biosensor technology will be applied to vascular tissue,” Kluess said.

She has been conducting research with a smaller grant from the Arkansas Biosciences Institute.

“This grant allows us to go to the next level in this research,” Kluess said of the new award. “It allows me to fund a doctoral student for another year and a half and to employ an undergraduate student who has been working with me. We’ll collect pilot data for a four- to five-year grant.”

According to the American Heart Association, high blood pressure has no symptoms but it raises the risk of stroke, heart attack, heart failure and kidney failure. The cause is not known, and while it can’t be cured, high blood pressure can be controlled, according to the association.

Little previous research has focused on the differences between physiology of men and women in this regard, Kluess said. Both genders experience age-related changes, but women experience a greater magnitude increase in sympathetic nerve activity and blood pressure, she explained.

“The sympathetic nervous system controls an enormous quantity of functions in the body,” Kluess said. “It controls blood vessel constriction, and, the smaller the vessel, the less blood can flow. We see an increase in sympathetic activity with aging, strokes and cardiovascular disease that may contribute to low blood flow with these conditions. There are drugs available to control hypertension, but they have been tested primarily on men.

“Women are severely understudied,” she continued. “The mechanism for constricting the blood vessels in women may be very different than that for men. As women get older, they experience much more serious problems with blood flow, especially while exercising, and that’s a problem when trying to remain active.”

Another study reported by the American Heart Association found that high blood pressure significantly increases the risk of disabilities later in life, such as inability to lift objects, walk up or down stairs or bathe oneself, all essential to living an independent daily life. It found that women with hypertension face a higher risk of disability than hypertensive men.