Blood pressure distribution and determinants of higher levels of blood pressure in japanese rural adolescents

The blood pressures (BP) and anthropometric values of 1, 014 Japanese rural school children aged 12-17 years old were measured at one-year interval. The strongest correlation for systolic BP(SBP) was weight and for diastolic BP(DBP) it was age. smaller increment of height showed significant discriminative powers in differentiating the subjects who had been above the age-sex specific 80th percentile value (H-H group) from those who had been below the 20th percentile value (L-L group) for both SBP than those without a FHH, and were more prevalent in H-H group for SBP. These results indicate that larger body size and more mature stature are determinants of higher levels of BP during adolescence, and FHH affects SBP only in this period.