First born males more likely to have hypertension
Research reveals that first born males with a family history of hypertension and low birthweight have a high risk of getting hypertension. The risks increase when they smoke or are overweight.
The researchers from New Zealand’s University of Otago suggest that lifestyle changes early in life should be applied to avoid hypertension.
The findings are the latest to emerge from the internationally renowned Dunedin Study, which has tracked more than a 1000 people born in Dunedin in 1972 to 1973 from birth to the present. The research is published in the international journal Hypertension.
Using blood pressure information collected between the ages of 7 to 38 years, researchers identified study members as belonging to one of four different blood pressure groups. They found that more than a third of them were at risk of developing clinically high blood pressure levels by early mid-life.
Dunedin Study Director, Professor Richie Poulton, says “encouraging lifestyle changes beginning early in life that include the maintenance of a healthy body weight, weight reduction and stopping smoking may help to lower blood pressure levels over time, particularly among those individuals on a trajectory to developing hypertension”.
Those individuals in the higher blood pressure groups were also more likely to have other negative health related conditions by age 38 years including higher blood cholesterol levels.
“Our findings can be used to inform early detection, targeted prevention and/or intervention to help reduce the burden associated with this silent killer,” says lead author Dr Reremoana Theodore
