The relationship between blood pressure, anthropometric indices and metabolic profile in adolescents: a cross sectional study.

Objective: To investigate the relationship between blood pressure, anthropometric indices and metabolic profile in adolescents.

Methods: The present cross sectional study was conducted in 1005, 12-y-old junior students referred to 15 urban health centers of Rasht. Samples were recruited randomly and data were collected in a form which consisted of demographic characteristics, history of disease in samples and their immediate families, birth weight, physical examination and clinical examination including height, weight, blood pressure and body mass index. Also, metabolic profiles including fasting blood sugar (FBS), blood sugar (BS), cholesterol, and triglyceride (TG), low density lipoprotein (LDL), high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and insulin levels were measured. Data were analyzed in SPSS software, by descriptive and analytic statistics and p value 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: Eight hundred fifty nine adolescents consisting of 550 (64 %) boys and 309 (34 %) girls participated in this study; 11.4 % (84/739 cases) of the participants had hypertension. The strongest correlation was seen between systolic blood pressure and weight, waist or hip circumferences and insulin levels. Also, FBS had very weak correlation with blood pressure.

Conclusions: Thus, weight, waist and hip circumferences, insulin levels, high TG and low HDL have been indicated as the strongest correlating factors for high blood pressure.Thus, these factors should be investigated in high risk children and followed in hypertensive child to monitor cardiometabolic risk factors.