Prevalence of risk factors in children and youth with essential hypertension

Background The percentage of hypertensive patients among children and youth grows every year. Very often hypertension coexists with obesity (or overweight) and lipids disorders. The aim of this work was to assess how often we meet risk factors like positive family history, obesity and dyslipidemia in groups of children and youth with primary hypertension. Material and methods There were 86 patients under examination, aged 14-17 (50 boys and 36 girls) with primary hypertension. The given parameters were estimated: family history, blood pressure, height, weight, BMI, lipid profile. The control group consists of 93 healthy subjects matched by sex and age. Results In the analysed group 39.53% of fathers and 27% of mothers had hypertension. There were also high percentage of obesity among parents -24.42% of fathers and 29.07% of mothers were obese. In examined population BMI was significant higher than in controls. Only in groups of 14 year old boys and 17 year old girls, the differences failed to reach the statistically significance. The average systolic blood pressure was the highest in the group of 17 year old boys (145 +/- 7,8 mm Hg) and girls (143,3 +/- 8,2 mm Hg). The average diastolic blood pressure was the highest in group of 17 years old girls (88,3 +/- +/- 9,8 mm Hg) and 15-and 17 year old boys (85 +/- 9,1 mm Hg and 85,1 +/- 8,0 mm Hg). In analysed group 39.5% of patients had both hypertension and obesity. Conclusion 1. Overweight or obesity is the most popular risk factor in young hypertensives. 2. In those population hypertension was very often associated with dyslipidemia and positive family history.