Blood‐pressures in Offspring of Hypertensive Parents

The blood-pressures in a material of 59 children aged 6-17 years and 49 adults aged 18-37 years, all of whom had one parent with essential hypertension were compared with control materials. Despite the facts that all of these had one parent with essential hypertension and 2/3 had, in addition, at least one grandparent with essential hypertension, the blood-pressures in the age-group 6-17 years did not differ from the control population. This held true also for the pulse, obesity index, weight and HDL/total cholesterol. In the age-group 18-37 years, 22% had diastolic blood-pressures of over the 95% control percentile. In the group of men as a whole, the diastolic blood-pressure (phase 4) was significantly higher (p less than 0.01) than in the control population while no difference in the systolic blood-pressure was found. It is concluded that it does not appear to be necessary to control the blood-pressure in children under the age of 18 years with one hypertensive parent more frequently than in other children, while there may be good reasons for controlling the blood-pressure in young adults over 18 years if one of the parents has hypertension.