Sex Differences in Blood Pressure and Its Relationship to Body Composition and Metabolism in Adolescence

Abstract

To investigate during adolescence (1) sex differences in blood pressure (BP) and hemodynamic factors at rest and during physical and mental challenges and (2) whether these differences are mediated by body composition and glucose and lipid metabolism.

Body composition shapes cardiometabolic risk in children with multifactorial dyslipidemia

“…An unexpected finding in our cohort was that male sex was associated with lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure percentiles in multivariable models, which contrasts with most pediatric studies reporting higher blood pressure in boys than girls, even after adjusting for adiposity and other risk factors ( 45–48 ). This inverse association may reflect cohort-specific characteristics, such as sex differences in pubertal stage distribution, body composition patterns beyond those captured by our measured variables, or unmeasured behavioral and environmental factors.…”

Multiple Points Change in the Association of Blood Pressure Subtypes with Anthropometric Indices of Adiposity among Children in a Rural Population

“…Girls had higher mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure than boys. This is inconsistent with the earlier findings [16], which showed lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure in girls than boys. The inconsistency between this study and that of Syme et al may be due to differences in the characteristics of the study participants.…”

Maternal supplementation with vitamin A or β-carotene and cardiovascular risk factors among pre-adolescent children in rural Nepal

“…We observed that girls had a slightly higher SBP than boys, which remained significant after controlling for age and height. This differs from what has been reported in other populations, 23 , 43 , 44 although the reasons for this difference are unclear. In the United States, the prevalence of hypertension at similar ages (8–17 years) was reported to be lower, at 2.6% for boys and 3.4% for girls in 2003–2006 40 .…”