New study finds high blood pressure among young adults around 20 percent

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Updated: July 7, 2011 2:06PM

Young adults are much more likely to have high blood pressure than previously thought, according to a new, government-funded study that puts the number around 20 percent.

Diet, obesity and sedentary lifestyles appear to be the key reasons, according to the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill researchers whose study results appeared in the journal Epidemiology. They tested more than 14,000 people between the ages of 24 and 32 and found that nearly one in five had high blood pressure.

High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, was defined as having a blood-pressure reading of 140/90 or higher. According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, a normal blood pressure is 120/80 or less.

It’s a factor in heart disease and strokes, the No. 1 and No. 3 leading causes of death among Americans.

“We were surprised by the figure,” says Kathleen Mullan Harris, a sociology professor who was the principal investigator for the study. She called the findings evidence “alarming, especially since more than half did not know that they had high blood pressure.”

Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of women and heart disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, points to the rise of obesity in young people — about 30 percent of young people are obese, she says.

“These are people who shouldn’t be sick — and they are,” she says.

Steinbaum says you can’t change some risk factors for heart disease, such as family history and age, but you can address others, including sedentary living and diet.

“Eighty percent of the time, heart disease is preventable,” she says.

Scripps Howard News Service