Obesity and season as determinants of high blood pressure in a school-based screening study

Seasonal variation of blood pressure in children

“…Worth mentioning is that the study took place in Kastoria, in the Northern part of Greece, with cold spring temperatures being lower than autumn ones. Other seasonally varying observations of this study included milder sleep problems occurring with hot weather and less physical activity, but increasing workload with exams during the winter months [11]. Overall, the studies report significant seasonal changes of 3.4-5.9 mmHg or 0.5-1.5 mmHg per − 1°C difference in environmental temperature in systolic BP with higher values in fall or winter [2,[6][7][8][9].…”

“…The prevalence of BP in the hypertensive range increased by 50% and 57% from warm to cold seasons in the Indian and Greek studies, respectively [10,11]. The power of most studies is fairly strong with significant numbers of subjects, especially in the studies from India, Germany, the USA, Greece, and Australia [2,7,8,10,11]. In general, the participants received three BP measurements after resting for 5 min using sphygmomanometers and a properly sized cuff.…”

“…Studies in large pediatric cohorts report significant seasonal changes in BP [2,7,8,10,11]. These changes amount to 3.4-5.9 mmHg or 0.5-1.5 mmHg per − 1°C difference in environmental temperature in systolic BP with a peak in fall or winter [2,[6][7][8][9].…”

“…These changes amount to 3.4-5.9 mmHg or 0.5-1.5 mmHg per − 1°C difference in environmental temperature in systolic BP with a peak in fall or winter [2,[6][7][8][9]. The prevalence of BP in the hypertensive range increased by 50% and 57% from warm to cold seasons in Indian and Greek cohorts, respectively [10,11]. Potential mechanisms and mediators of seasonal BP variation include sympathetic activation of the nervous system [2,13,14], with an increase of urinary as well as plasma norepinephrine in the winter in both children and adults [13,15,16].…”

“…A Greek study published in 2019 investigated 2832 6- to 18-year-old children. 3.7% of all subjects showed elevated BP, and 0.9% had BP values in the hypertensive range, as defined by the European Society of Hypertension [ 11 , 12 ]. The prevalence was highest in spring (5.5%) and winter (5%) and significantly different from that in autumn (2.5%, p < 0.05).…”