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R. Ravi Shankar, George J. Eckert, Chandan Saha, Wanzhu Tu, J. Howard Pratt, The Change in Blood Pressure during Pubertal Growth, The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Volume 90, Issue 1, 1 January 2005, Pages 163–167, https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2004-0926
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Abstract
Blood pressure (BP) in children may increase more during puberty. Using a cohort of children where BP and body size had been closely monitored, we compared the rates of change in BP during the 3-yr period before puberty, during puberty (∼4.5-yr period), and the 3-yr period after puberty. Because there was no specific staging information with respect to puberty, we used pubertal growth (PG) as a surrogate of puberty. The latter was determined from serial measurements of height. All subjects (n = 151) were followed from before the period of PG to the period after PG; none were related. An age-dependent increase in systolic BP in the pre-PG period was similar regardless of sex or race. During PG, systolic BP in males increased three to six times faster than in the pre-PG period. In females, systolic BP increased less than in males during PG but still increased two to four times faster than in the pre-PG period. The increase in males was significantly greater than in females (P < 0.001). Post-PG changes in BP were similar to changes in pre-PG BP. In summary, PG was associated with profound increases in systolic BP. There were noticeably greater increments in males than in females consistent with the emergence of the well known sexual dimorphism in BP.
