1 in 5 young adults has high blood pressure – hypertension

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The number of young adults in the United States with high blood pressure may be much higher than previously reported, according to a new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Researchers analyzed data on more than 14,000 men and women between 24 and 32 years old in 2008 from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, known as Add Health, funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Researchers found 19 percent had elevated blood pressure, also referred to as hypertension. Only about half of the participants with elevated blood pressure had ever been told by a health-care provider that they had the condition.

“The findings are significant because they indicate that many young adults are at risk of developing heart disease, but are unaware that they have hypertension,” said Quynh Nguyen, a doctoral student at UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health and the study’s lead author. Hypertension is a strong risk factor for stroke and coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death for adults in the U.S.

Kathleen Mullan Harris, Ph.D., Add Health’s principal investigator, interim director of the UNC Carolina Population Center and a co-author of the paper, said the findings were noteworthy because they were from the first nationally representative, field-based study of blood pressure to focus on young adults. Other studies have concentrated on older adult populations, in which hypertension is more common, or have included only a small number of young adults, making it difficult to draw conclusions about that age group.

Harris said that the high rate of hypertension among the Add Health study participants was surprising. Another widely cited and reputable study ? the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, or NHANES ? reported a much lower rate of hypertension (4 percent) for a similar age group around the same time period (2007-2008). Both studies use the same definition of hypertension: a blood pressure reading of 140/90 mmHg (millimeters of mercury) or more.

“Our respective findings may differ, but the message is clear,” said Harris. “Young adults and the medical professionals they visit shouldn’t assume they’re not old enough to have high blood pressure. This is a condition that leads to chronic illness, premature death and costly medical treatment.

Also notable was the Add Health finding that the number of young adults with elevated blood pressure was almost twice the number who reported being previously told by a health-care provider that they had hypertension (11 percent). Eric Whitsel, M.D., head of the study’s biology core, said that the finding was in line with expectations that measuring blood pressure will identify hypertension in otherwise healthy young adults who were unaware they had the condition.

The Add Health study also found males were much more likely than females to have hypertension (27 percent vs. 11 percent); and young adults without a high school degree were more likely than their college-educated peers to have the condition (22 percent vs. 17 percent).

Source: University of North Carolina School of Medicine, USA


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