Obesity in Hispanic adolescents linked to nearly sixfold increase in high blood pressure
While increasing body mass index (BMI), a measure of obesity, was associated with increased risk for high blood pressure in all four examined ethnic groups, the prevalence of high blood pressure was almost 6 times higher among obese Hispanic adolescents compared to normal weight Hispanics. Almost 25 percent of the Hispanic adolescents in the study were obese. Here is what the researchers found when they compared the prevalence of high blood pressure between obese and normal weight adolescents in the other ethnic groups: Obese white adolescents had an approximately fourfold increase; Obese Asian adolescents, though few, had an approximately threefold increase; Obese African-American adolescents had an approximately twofold increase. "We believe we are the first to compare adolescent blood pressures to body mass index in these four major ethnic/racial groups," said Joshua Samuels, M.D., M.P.H., the study's senior author, a professor in the Department of Pediatri...