One in five young adults may have high blood pressure

Straits Times, ,May 26, 2011 (Thursday.

One in five young adults may have high blood pressure

CHICAGO - NEARLY one in five young US adults may have high blood pressure, researchers said on Wednesday in a study suggesting the problem of hypertension is more widespread than previously thought.

The latest findings by a team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are in sharp contrast to a federal government study by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey that suggested only 4 per cent of young adults might have high blood pressure, a condition that raises the risk of strokes and heart attacks.

Both studies used the same definition of hypertension: a blood pressure reading of 140 over 90 millimeters of mercury or more. Normal blood pressure is considered to be 120 over 80 or lower.

'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 the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, whose study appears online in the journal Epidemiology.

The researchers did not study why the numbers may be rising or relate the findings to US intake of sodium, a major contributor to high blood pressure. US health officials say the study is a worrisome signal, but are cautious to embrace the new findings until they have been confirmed in other studies.

'This one study by itself shouldn't lead us to a revision of health policy or health assessment. it is just a signal we need to examine in greater detail,' Dr Steven Hirschfeld of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, one of the National Institutes of Health, said in a telephone interview. -- REUTERS