Dubai, United Arab Emirates – An American study revealed that high blood pressure in children portends the possibility of heart disease in later stages of life.
The study confirmed that children who complain of high blood pressure at the age of seven have an increased risk of death.
This is due to heart disease in the mid-fifties.
The study included about 38,000 children born between 1959 and 1966 who developed high blood pressure when they were seven years old.
Their health condition has been monitored for decades.
When the study participants reached the age of 54, about 500 of them died from health problems related to heart disease.
The head of the study team from Northwestern Feinberg University School of Medicine in the United States says that these results show a close link between high blood pressure in childhood and the possibility of premature death from heart disease.
She added in statements reported by the Health Day website, which specializes in medical research, that “high blood pressure in children increases the risk of death by between 40 percent and 50 percent within 5 decades of an individual’s life”.
The study also indicated that children whose blood pressure rises but remains within normal limits will also likely die at an early age due to heart problems.
The researchers believe that these results confirm the importance of monitoring blood pressure at an early age, not just in adults.
