![]() ![]() In a sense, the old guidelines forgave blood pressure elevation that might be related to obesity. “A larger percentage of children now have been identified as having high blood pressure, mostly because the measures are now based on normal weight children, whereas the previous group used as a reference included kids who were obese,” says Dr. The new blood pressure thresholds for children up to age 12 were established without considering the overweight and obese (although age, sex, and height are factored in for this population). The earlier 2004 guidelines also had established blood pressure norms based on data including children with obesity. This aligns with the current definition of high blood pressure in adults. For those ages 13 to 17, the new guidelines were simplified so any reading greater than or equal to 130 millimeters of mercury (mmHg) systolic over 80 mmHg diastolic is now considered high blood pressure, with no adjustment for age, sex, or height. In 2017, the American Academy of Pediatrics updated its 2004 recommendations for the screening and management of high blood pressure in children and adolescents. “The newer 2017 guidelines identified a group of children with heart disease risk and outcomes that were underestimated by the previous 2004 guidelines,” says Lydia Bazzano, MD, senior author of the study and associate professor of epidemiology at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans. ![]() New research published in the May 2019 issue of the American Heart Association's journal Hypertension not only reveals how updated guidelines (published in September 2017 in the journal Pediatrics) have identified more youngsters as having high blood pressure, but also shows how children with elevated pressure are more likely to develop a thickening of the heart muscle wall and metabolic syndrome (a group of conditions that raises the risk of type 2 diabetes, stroke, and heart disease) compared with those who have normal blood pressure. While older people are more likely to have hypertension, children can also develop the condition. High blood pressure is a health problem that most associate with adults. ![]()
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