Adolescent Boys More Likely to Have Higher Systolic Blood Pressure than Girls

Adolescent boys have a significantly increased risk of high systolic blood pressure compared to adolescent girls. Systolic pressure refers to the contraction of the heart muscle when blood is pushed into the arteries. These are the findings of a research team called Genesis, a Canadian group looking at gender differences and cardiovascular disease. Reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, Genesis believe that the higher blood pressure in boy's may continue into adulthood explaining, in part, the higher prevalence of hypertension (high blood pressure) in men identified from previous studies.

The study also found that a sedentary lifestyle with little exercise increased risk for boys and girls of a high systolic blood pressure, and that the longer the time spent in sedentary behaviors the greater the risk. The research is the first to record gender differences in adolescent blood pressure. 'There seems to be certain physiological differences between boys and girls that put boys at later risk of heart disease,' says Kaberi Dasgupta, M.D., lead author of the study and assistant professor of medicine at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.

“The earlier in life you change your behavior, the more likely you will continue that healthy behavior,” Dr Dasgupta said. “The big message of our study is that we must pay attention to blood pressures in adolescents and perhaps in boys in particular.”
Simple lifestyle changes such as a healthy diet and increasing exercise can help avoid cardiovascular disease. The researchers also identified that the reluctance of men to visit doctors prevented early detection of blood pressure problems.

Source: Dasgupta, Kaberi, Jennifer O’Loughlin, Shunfu Chen, and Igor Karp et al. "Emergence of Sex Differences in Prevalence of High Systolic Blood Pressure. Analysis of a Longitudinal Adolescent Cohort." Circulation. 114(2006)

Related Information

What do Blood Pressure Readings Mean?

Blood Pressure Monitors