Blood pressure norms for healthy young adults: relation to sex, age, and reported parental hypertension.

ABSTRACT

Blood pressure norms are presented for 1,522 white, healthy, nonsmoking, normotensive 18 to 22-year-old men and women as a function of age and parental hypertension. Age effects were observed for diastolic blood pressure among males only. Parental hypertension was related to higher systolic and diastolic blood pressure among young women, and women with two hypertensive parents had higher systolic blood pressure than women with one hypertensive parent. The use of oral contraceptives is likely to have affected these results. Directions for future research are given.