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A longitudinal study of blood pressure circadian rhythm from childhood to early adulthood

Journal of Human Hypertension (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Altered blood pressure (BP) circadian rhythmicity has been increasingly linked with cardiovascular risk. However, little is known about BP circadian rhythm change with age and its possible sociodemographic, anthropometric, and genetic moderators. Twenty-four-hour ambulatory BP was measured up to 16 times over a 23-year period in 339 European Americans (EAs) and 293 African Americans (AAs), with an average age of 15 years at the initial visit. BP circadian rhythms were indexed by amplitude and percent rhythm (a measure of rhythm integrity) and calculated using Fourier analysis. BP amplitude and percent rhythm increased with age and average BP (BP mesor). AAs were more likely to have lower BP amplitude and percent rhythm than their EA counterparts. BP amplitude and percent rhythm also decreased with adiposity (BMI and waist circumference). The summer season was associated with lower BP amplitude in AAs and lower percent rhythm in both AAs and EAs. Sex, height, socioeconomic status, physical activity, and family history of essential hypertension did not have an independent impact on BP amplitude or percent rhythm. The results of the present study suggest that BP circadian rhythm increases with age and BP mesor from childhood to young adulthood, decreases with adiposity, and that AAs are more likely to have lower circadian rhythm than EAs. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the summer season is associated with lower BP rhythmicity.

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Fig. 1: Definition of rhythm characteristics.
Fig. 2: The increase of BP amplitude with age by ethnicity and sex.
Fig. 3: The increase of percent rhythm (PR) with age by ethnicity and sex.

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Data availability

The data analyzed during this study can be found within the published article and its supplementary files or, if further information is desired, from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was supported by Grants HL069999 and HL143440 from the National Institute of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA

    Katerina Massengale

  2. Department of Biostatistics and Informatics, University of Colorado-Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA

    Yanyan Xu

  3. Department of Epidemiology, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Harold Snieder

  4. Georgia Prevention Institute, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA

    Harold Snieder, Shaoyong Su & Xiaoling Wang

Authors
  1. Katerina Massengale
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  2. Yanyan Xu
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  3. Harold Snieder
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  4. Shaoyong Su
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  5. Xiaoling Wang
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Contributions

Katerina Massengale (BS): Performed the data analysis and drafted the manuscript. Yanyan Xu (PhD): Performed the data analysis. Harold Snieder (PhD): Data collection; made critical changes on the manuscript. Shaoyong Su (PhD): Data collection, performed the analysis, and made critical changes on the manuscript. Xiaoling Wang (MD/PhD): Designed the study and drafted the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiaoling Wang.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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The Institutional Review Board at the Medical College of Georgia gave its approval for the study. Informed consent was provided by all participants or by parents if participants were less than 18 years of age.

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Massengale, K., Xu, Y., Snieder, H. et al. A longitudinal study of blood pressure circadian rhythm from childhood to early adulthood. J Hum Hypertens (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41371-024-00911-8

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