Human blood pressure increases rapidly during the teenage years, continues a much slower rise in early adulthood, speeds up in our 40s, then increases slowly during old age, and finally drops when we are very old, British researchers revealed in this week’s PLoS Medicine.

The authors, from the Medical Research Council Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing, University College London, explain that the key causes of rising blood pressure over a lifetime are modifiable and could be addressed to prevent cardiovascular disease. Often hypertension has no clear symptoms. It affects approximately one third of the US and UK populations and can lead to life-threatening conditions, such as stroke and heart attacks. Controlling blood pressure is vital for good health.

Andrew Wills and team gathered data from a number of UK studies which had taken blood pressure readings regularly from participants over time. They analyzed blood pressure data from 30,372 people aged between 7 and 80 years. They researched the differences between readings in the studies done in the general population and one occupational group.

The occupational group had average lower blood pressure than the general population, and their midlife blood pressure increases appeared to start later. Further analysis led the investigators to believe that the difference might in part be due to blood pressure-related factors, such as lifestyle and diet – factors which vary according to social and economic circumstances.

Although males during early adulthood had higher blood pressure than females of the same age, women’s faster mid-life acceleration meant that later in life blood pressure readings were similar for both sexes. The authors suggest this could be partly due to menopause-related effects on salt sensitivity.

The authors added that their findings support evidence pointing to a close link between BMI (Body Mass Index) and blood pressure throughout life.

They said:

“Whilst our study is unable to identify the key determinants of age-related increases in [blood pressure], further research should try to understand which factors affect this trajectory and when in the life course such factors exhibit most influence.”

Citation: “Life Course Trajectories of Systolic Blood Pressure Using Longitudinal Data from Eight UK Cohorts”
Wills AK, Lawlor DA, Matthews FE, Aihie Sayer A, Bakra E, et al. (2011)
PLoS Med 8(6): e1000440. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000440

Written by Christian Nordqvist