Heredity, stress and blood pressure, a family set method--II : Results of blood pressure measurement

Abstract

This second article, in a series of five, reports the blood pressure of the family set sample, excluding spouse of index. N = 1844 persons or 461 family sets. The blood pressures of members of these sets were tested for known correlates, specifically, sex, race, age and present overweight. Statistically significant relations were obtained between elevated pressure, both systolic and diastolic, and sex, race, age and per cent overweight. Age and per cent overweight appear as the most consistent predictors of blood pressure variance across sex-race groups among all continuous variables studied. In this sample, there was a higher per cent of diastolic hypertensive pressures than systolic in all race-sex groups. These findings are important in establishing conformity of results with other studies, but more pertinent, the analyses describe certain critical influences on blood pressure which can be adjusted for or taken into account in estimating the influence of a genetic factor on blood pressure.