Clinical studies in adults have shown an association between blood pressure, insulin resistance and lipids. The present study was conducted to determine whether similar associations are present in normal children prior to the onset of hypertension. Children were randomly selected from a cohort of 12,024 5th-8th grade Minneapolis public school students undergoing blood pressure screening in 1996. These data represent the first 128 participants(56 boys, 72 girls), age 13 ± 1 yrs. Blood pressure was measured with a Random Zero sphygmomanometer. Lipids were measured in fasting blood. Insulin resistance (M) was determined by the euglycemic insulin clamp method in which steady state insulin infusion (1mU/kg/min) is balanced by a variable infusion of 20% glucose to maintain blood sugar at 100 mg/dl for 3 hrs. All data are mean ± SE (see table). BMI was significantly correlated with blood pressure (p<0.01) and M (p<0.001) in both boys and girls, but blood pressure was significantly correlated with M only in boys(p<0.01). Blood pressure was not significantly correlated with any of the lipids but M was significantly correlated with Trig and HDL-C (p<0.01). These data show that insulin resistance is significantly associated with blood pressure in childhood and prior to the appearance of elevated blood pressure. The significant association between blood pressure and M only in males may represent early evidence of the increased adult risk noted in this sex as opposed to females. In addition, the significant association between insulin resistance and body size and lipids confirms the importance of these relations in childhood.

Table 1
Full size table