BACKGROUND: The load imposed on ventilation by increased body mass contributes to the respiratory symptoms caused by obesity. A study was conducted to quantify ventilatory load and respiratory drive in obesity in both the upright and supine postures. METHODS: Resting breathing when seated and supine was studied in 30 obese ...

BACKGROUND: Morbid obesity defined as BMI > 40 is a growing problem. It is primarily treated with diet, lifestyle changes, and medicine. However, at present, surgery remains the only effective option for the management. METHODS: Seventeen patients were studied 2 months after laparoscopic gastric banding. The aims were to evaluate ...

The inverse associations between birth weight and later adverse health outcomes and the positive associations between adult body size and poor health imply that increases in relative body size between birth and adulthood may be undesirable. In this paper, the authors describe life course path analysis, a method that can ...

BACKGROUND: Despite a growing interest in the epidemiology of paediatric hypertension, data on how often blood pressure in children and adolescents already exceeds adult thresholds for optimal blood pressure are scarce. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of higher-than-optimal and hypertensive blood pressure values according to ...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Currently, obesity has become a worldwide health problem affecting even children and yet little is known about its role as a determinant of high blood pressure in this age group. The aim of this epidemiological study was to determine the relationship between the increment of body mass ...

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of abdominal fat and insulin resistance on arterial hypertension of non-obese women. METHODS: Thirty-five non-obese women (NO), age 35-68 years were studied, and divided into two groups according to the presence of hypertension (BP >or= 140 x 90 mmHg) (HT = hypertensive; NT = normotensive). ...

OBJECTIVE: In view of the fact that height differences between socio-economic groups are apparent early in childhood, it is of interest to examine whether skeletal growth is reflective of the social class gradient in CVD risk. The present study examined blood pressure levels, adiposity and growth of adolescent boys from ...

BACKGROUND: Obesity produces various hemodynamic abnormalities that may impact hypertension subtypes. Similarly, the study of hypertension subtypes provides important information regarding the relative importance of hemodynamic abnormalities contributing to obesity-related hypertension. METHODS: Cross-sectional analysis of adults enrolled in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) (n = ...

CONTEXT: Hypertension (HTN) has been reported in up to 60% of children with Cushing syndrome (CS), but its course, side effects, and potential differences among various causes of CS have not been adequately studied. OBJECTIVE: The objective of the study was to measure blood pressure in pediatric patients with CS ...

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the relationship between blood pressure and body mass index among adolescents. METHODS: A 14-month period cross-sectional study was carried out among 2387 adolescents attending public schools in the state of Morelos, Mexico between 2005 and 2007. We measured blood pressure during four visits, obtaining elevated blood pressure ...

Our aim in this part of the Sardinian Hypertensive Adolescents Research Programme, also known as the SHARP study, was to use longitudinal screening over a period of 3 years to search for any relationship between hypertension and excessive weight in a number of Southern Italian students. We also sought to ...

The aim of the present study was to assess the interrelationship of obesity with plasma homocysteine levels as well as vitamin B12 and folic acid levels in hypertensive and normotensive subjects. Sixty-five hypertensive and sixty-five normotensive patients were studied. Plasma homocysteine, vitamin B12 and folic acid, lipid parameters, blood pressure, ...

The objective of this study was to develop age- and gender-specific reference ranges for blood pressure in a large national database on blood pressure levels throughout childhood and adolescence in young Poles. A prospective cross-sectional study was performed in 2002-2005 in the representative sampling sites, selected randomly from the entire ...

Several physiological changes affecting physical fitness occur in humans whenever they are exposed to extremes of environments such as heat, cold and high altitude (HA). The present study was undertaken to evaluate effect of stay in desert and HA on physical fitness and body composition of physically active individuals. Study ...

PURPOSE: High pressures are important in percutaneous transluminal angioplasty, particularly in hemodialysis access. Although many operators rely on commercially available inflators, small syringes can deliver high pressures, which might make inflators unnecessary. Recently introduced polycarbonate (PC) syringes may allow higher pressure delivery than traditional polypropylene (PP) ones, so the present ...

Obesity is related to office blood pressure (OBP). Important discrepancies exist between OBP and home blood pressure (HBP), providing complementary information for the management of hypertension. The association between obesity and HBP has not been investigated in children. The evidence on the role of obesity in the predominance of systolic ...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationships between fitness and components of the metabolic syndrome in sedentary men. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: 39 subjects (34-53 years) were evaluated for fitness (VO(2max)) and anthropometric, metabolic, and skeletal muscle phenotypes. VO(2max) was assessed on a bicycle ergometer whereas other variables were obtained from an oral ...

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of upper extremity (UE) weight bearing on UE impairment functional performance of persons with acquired brain injury (BI). A quasi-experimental design was used to examine a convenience sample of 99 persons with acquired BI and 22 without BI (WBI) living ...

To provide data on overweight, obesity and hypertension among adolescent girls in Norway and Argentina. Data was obtained from two population-based, cross-sectional and descriptive studies containing anthropometric and blood pressure measurements of 15 to 18 year old girls. The study included 2,156 adolescent girls from Norway evaluated between 1995 and ...

AIMS: To verify the variations of blood pressure in children with minimal change nephrotic syndrome and to correlate the blood pressure with familial history of essential hypertension. METHODS: We measured blood pressure in 49 prepubertal nephrotic children, 17 females and 32 males, in the first week of oedema, and after ...

BACKGROUND: The prevention and control of high blood pressure or other cardiovascular diseases has not received due attention in many developing countries. This study aims to describe the epidemiology of high blood pressure among adults in Addis Ababa, so as to inform policy and lay the ground for surveillance interventions. ...

BACKGROUND: Inappropriate daily profile of blood pressure deteriorates the clinical outcome of hypertension and increases distant cardiovascular risk. The problem is important, especially in children and adolescents in whom early intervention helps to prevent complications of hypertension such as left ventricular hypertrophy and hypertensive retinopathy. OBJECTIVES: To assess circadian blood ...

The rapid rise in the incidence and prevalence of obesity and the concomitant increase in the incidence and prevalence of hypertension have fueled investigation into the role of obesity in the pathogenesis of hypertension. The genetic background that predisposes obese individuals to hypertension is being elucidated, and the importance of ...

Early nutrition may program obesity and cardiovascular risk later in life, and one of the potential agents is (n-3) long-chain PUFA (LCPUFA). In this study, our objective was to examine whether fish oil (FO) supplementation during lactation affects blood pressure and body composition of children. Danish mothers (n = 122) ...

Measurement of brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) is recognized as a simple and practical method for assessing arterial stiffness. We determined whether the baPWV of adolescents is affected by obesity and its associated metabolic risk variables. A cross-sectional sample of 754 apparently healthy adolescents (383 men and 371 women), aged ...

BACKGROUND: Hypertension is a well-recognized and treatable risk factor for coronary heart disease and is one of the most common comorbidities associated with obesity. The aim of this study was to characterize the clinical outcome of a cohort of patients with documented hypertension who underwent laparoscopic gastric bypass. METHODS: Ninety-five ...

BACKGROUND: Obese patients have myocardial structural and functional alterations related to insulin resistance. HYPOTHESIS: The purpose of the study was to analyze the effects of rosiglitazone, an insulin sensitizer agent, on cardiac morphometry and functioning. METHODS: In 2 groups of sex- and age-matched, nondiabetic, obese patients (5 men and 7 ...

Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is a risk factor for the development of hypertension in later life. Insulin-like growth factor I and growth hormone (GH) have the potential to improve metabolic syndrome after IUGR in adult animals. The objective of the present study was to examine whether transient GH treatment of ...

Adult hypertension is independently associated with elevated C-reactive protein levels, after controlling for obesity and other cardiovascular risk factors. The objective of this study was to determine, with a nationally representative sample of children, whether the relationship between elevated blood pressure and C-reactive protein levels may be evident before adulthood. ...

The current criteria for sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) in children are not based on a clinically relevant outcome. The purpose of this study was to assess the association of blood pressure with SDB in a random sample of the local elementary school children (kindergarten through grade 5) using a 2-phased strategy. ...

Several studies have reported data supporting the idea that an impaired intrauterine environment that deprives the fetus of optimal nutrient delivery results in the predisposition of the fetus to experience cardiovascular and metabolic dysfunction in later life. However, contradictory data still exist. Our purpose was to investigate the effects of ...

OBJECTIVE: Childhood overweight and obesity may result in premature onset of cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension. Rural populations in North America may be at increased risk for overweight. We evaluated whether overweight and obesity were associated with prehypertension and hypertension in a well-characterized population of children in rural Canada. ...

Evidence supporting the association of normal and pathologically elevated blood pressure with low birth weight is presented and discussed in this article because of the overwhelming global prevalence of hypertension and its impact on individuals and nations. The findings provide strong impetus for the medical and public health communities to ...

The secular weight increase in European and US adolescents and the increasing use of oscillometric devices pose a problem to decide on normative blood pressure levels. We studied how biological and statistical aspects influence standards, and suggest new Northern Europe reference tables. All adolescents of Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway, aged 13-18 ...

BACKGROUND: Some studies have suggested that increased blood pressure has a stronger effect on the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in lean persons than in obese persons, although this is not a universal finding. Given the inconsistency of this result, we tested it using a large population-based cohort data set. ...

BACKGROUND: It has recently been hypothesised that acute dehydration in early childhood may "programme" increased blood pressure via salt retention. We examined whether there was an association between episodes of diarrhoea (a proxy for acute dehydration) and later measured blood pressure. METHODS: In the 1982 Pelotas birth cohort study (Brazil), ...

The mechanism linking obesity with its downstream complications is poorly understood. Accumulating evidence suggests that insufficient oxidative capacity plays a central role in the development of insulin resistance and, perhaps, hypertension. To investigate this hypothesis, we measured lactate, a marker of the gap between energy expenditure and oxidative capacity, in ...

BACKGROUND: The association between obesity and blood pressure is well documented and a series of obesity indices are used as risk factors or indicators of blood pressure and/or the presence of hypertension. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study was to explore and determine which obesity index is the best ...

There is a consistent inverse association between birth weight and systolic blood pressure; however, few studies have been able to examine the immediate postnatal period. We have examined whether accelerated postnatal growth predicts adult systolic and diastolic blood pressure. We followed up participants from the Barry Caerphilly Growth Study. Blood ...

To find out the factors responsible for variations of adolescent blood pressure, a community-based cross-sectional study was undertaken among 1081 adolescents, aged 10-19 years, selected by simple random sampling in an urban slum of Kolkata, Chetla in 2003-04. Age, educational status, additional ghee/butter intake with diet, family history of hypertension, ...

Increased left ventricular mass (LVM) on echocardiogram is an independent risk factor for cardiac complications from hypertension. It is associated with a four-fold increase in untoward cardiac events when present. Data were reviewed for 100 treated hypertensive Afro-Caribbean patients, aged 29 to 65 years, recruited from village health clinics. Age, ...

Tsunan, Niigata is a non-westernized rural Japanese town, known for heavy snowfalls and as a rice-producing area, whose inhabitants have a long life expectancy. We investigated the prevalence of obesity, metabolic syndrome (MetS) and its components in Tsunan. A total of 1,155 men and women, 40-69 years of age were ...

In animals, the adipocyte-derived hormone leptin induces increased blood pressure centrally via the hypothalamus, and one study has reported that exercise training decreases hypothalamic leptin receptor expression. In humans, high circulating leptin concentrations are associated with high blood pressure, but the possible influence of physical activity or aerobic capacity on ...

There are few longitudinal studies on the associations of obesity with hypertension in young adults. To analyze longitudinally to what extent weight gain associates with hypertension in young adults. The subjects of this study consisted of 6,178 university students (male 4,098; female 2,080). The associations of hypertension with body type ...

Obesity increases the risk of hypertension and its cardiovascular complications. This has been partly attributed to increased sympathetic nerve activity, as assessed by microneurography and catecholamine assays. However, increased vasoconstriction in response to obesity-induced sympathoactivation has not been unequivocally demonstrated in obese subjects without hypertension. We evaluated sympathetic alpha-adrenergic vascular ...

BACKGROUND: Birthweight, and by inference maternal nutrition during pregnancy, is thought to be an important determinant of offspring blood pressure but the evidence base for this in humans is lacking data from randomized controlled trials. METHODS: The offspring from a maternal prenatal protein-energy supplementation trial were enrolled into a follow-up ...

OBJECTIVE: To study whether antenatal or neonatal glucocorticoid therapy to reduce the incidence and severity of chronic lung disease in preterm infants is associated with long-term adverse cardiac effects and hypertension. DESIGN: Retrospective matched-cohort study. SETTING: Outpatient clinic of a tertiary care hospital. PARTICIPANTS: One hundred ninety-three children aged 7 ...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the ability of BMI and waist circumference, single and combined, in identifying children who are at risk of hypertension and in influencing absolute blood pressure values. METHODS: The body weight, height, waist circumference and blood pressure of 4177 5-11-year-old school children [2005 (48%) girls] were collected. Elevated ...

OBJECTIVE: To verify whether peptide YY (PYY) and its Y2 receptor (Y2R) gene variants can be associated with obesity or hypertension or both in a cohort of obese children and adolescents. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Two hundred and twenty-nine obese children (105 girls, mean z-score BMI 5.1 +/- 2.4; mean age ...

We investigated whether obese children and adolescents have early echocardiographic signs of subclinical cardiac dysfunction and evaluated the respective influence of obesity per se versus parameters of carbohydrate and lipid metabolism that are frequently abnormal in obese subjects. The role of tissue Doppler imaging as a screening tool for these ...