Tracking and Transition Probability of Blood Pressure From Childhood to Midadulthood.

Importance: Despite its relevance for pediatric blood pressure (BP) screening, the long-term predictive utility and natural progression of pediatric BP classification remain understudied.

Objective: To evaluate BP tracking from childhood to midadulthood using the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) thresholds and estimate transition probabilities among BP classifications over time considering multiple time points.

Design, Setting, And Participants: The analyses were performed in 2023 using data gathered from September 1980 to August 2018 within the longitudinal Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study.

Pediatric Blood Pressure and Cardiovascular Health in Adulthood.

Purpose Of Review: This review summarizes current knowledge on blood pressure in children and adolescents (youth), with a focus on primary hypertension-the most common form of elevated blood pressure in this demographic. We examine its etiology, progression, and long-term cardiovascular implications. The review covers definitions and recommendations of blood pressure classifications, recent developments in measurement, epidemiological trends, findings from observational and clinical studies, and prevention and treatment, while identifying gaps in understanding and suggesting future research directions.

Blood Pressure at Different Life Stages Over the Early Life Course and Intima-Media Thickness.

Importance: Although cardiovascular disease (CVD) begins in early life, the extent to which blood pressure (BP) at different life stages contributes to CVD is unclear.

Objective: To determine the relative contribution of BP at different life stages across the early-life course from infancy to young adulthood with carotid intima-media thickness (IMT).

Design, Setting, And Participants: The analyses were performed in 2022 using data gathered from July 1989 through January 2018 within the Special Turku Coronary Risk Factor Intervention Project, a randomized, infancy-onset cohort of 534 participants coupled with annual BP (from age 7 months to 20 years), biennial IMT measurements (from ages 13 to 19 years), who were followed up with again at age 26 years.

The Influence of Dietary Counseling Over 20 Years on Tracking of Non-High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol from Infancy to Young Adulthood.

This 26-year study found that non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (non-HDL-C) levels tracked from infancy to young adulthood suggesting early-life non-HDL-C could predict future levels. However, infancy-onset dietary counseling reduced the odds of maintaining at-risk non-HDL-C, highlighting the potential importance of early interventions in preventing cardiovascular risk associated with high pediatric non-HDL-C.

Impact of within-visit systolic blood pressure change patterns on blood pressure classification: the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study.

Aims: Most international guidelines recommend that repeat blood pressure (BP) readings are required for BP classification. Two international guidelines diverge from this by recommending that no further BP measurements are required if the first clinic BP is below a hypertension threshold. The extent to which within-visit BP variability patterns change over time, and whether this could impact BP classification is unknown.

Within-visit SBP variability from childhood to adulthood and markers of cardiovascular end-organ damage in mid-life.

Background: Within-visit SBP variability is associated with age and SBP, but its long-term clinical significance is unknown. We examined the association between child, adult, and life-time within-visit SBP variability with markers of end-organ damage using data from a 31-year longitudinal study.

Methods: Within-visit SBP variability was calculated as the standard deviation of three sitting SBP readings among up to 3010 participants aged 6-18 years (childhood) who were re-measured up to seven times to mid-adulthood.

Within-visit and between-visit intra-individual blood pressure variability in an unselected adult population from rural China.

Objective: To assess the association between the variability of blood pressure (BP) readings within an initial clinic visit, the variability within subsequent visits and the variability between visits over 1 week in a general population.

Methods: This study included 1401 adult residents, who were not taking antihypertensive drugs, having BP measurements at three visits over 1 week. The difference between maximal and minimal BP readings (ΔBP), ΔBP/BPm (the mean BP value in a visit), the standard deviation (SD) and coefficient of variation (coefficient of variation = SD × 100/mean) of three BP values in each visit were used to estimate the within-visit BP variability (BPV).

How to check whether a blood pressure monitor has been properly validated for accuracy.

Hypertension guidelines recommend that blood pressure (BP) should be measured using a monitor that has passed validation testing for accuracy. BP monitors that have not undergone rigorous validation testing can still be cleared by regulatory authorities for marketing and sale. This is the situation for most BP monitors worldwide.