The association between cardiovascular response tasks and future blood pressure levels in children: Bogalusa Heart Study

Children were selected from a total community survey and categorized into three blood pressure (BP) groups (low less than 10 percentile, midrange 10 to 90 percentile, high greater than 90 percentile) based on resting diastolic pressure (DBP). To examine the relationship of cardiovascular reactivity with BP levels 4 years later, three cardiovascular response tasks (orthostatic, handgrip, and cold pressor) were administered. Partial correlations, adjusted for initial resting BP, showed that peak BP responses to the three tasks were related to future resting systolic and diastolic BP. Further analyses showed that DBP reactivity was related to future BP tracking in children with high DBP levels. In the high DBP group, while resting DBP levels did not differ for trackers vs nontrackers, peak DBP responses to each of the three tasks did (orthostatic, p less than 0.001; handgrip, p less than 0.05; cold pressor, p less than 0.01). The combination of resting and peak BP levels may provide more powerful predictions of future BP levels in children.