Check Kids for High Blood Pressure?

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/check-kids-for-high-blood-pressure/280340/



This is the current directive information available for U.S. parents, from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease, with regard to getting their kids' blood pressures checked:




t's definitive. Eleven percent of obese kids have high blood pressure, so attention to this is growing, but even non-obese kids have a 1 to 5 percent chance.

Today, though, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force—a group of experts that reviews research to guide preventive healthcare practices—issued a statement that says we really don't have evidence to say that we should be checking every child's blood pressure. It is published in the major medical journals Pediatrics and Annals of Internal Medicine. An excerpt:

No direct evidence demonstrated that screening children and adolescents for hypertension [high blood pressure] is effective in delaying the onset of or reducing the risk for adverse cardiovascular health outcomes related to hypertension, either in childhood or adulthood.

[Warpy]

1. It's not just the obese kids

Trans fats and HFCS have had an effect on thinner kids, too, raising triglycerides and depositing plaque on artery walls. If the kid spends every weeknight sitting and doing homework instead of running and playing outdoors, it worsens.

Every check at the pediatrician's office should include a blood pressure check. I'd hate to see kids growing up today getting my kidney disease in their 20s and 30s instead of waiting until they're old and decrepit.