Effects of Parental Hypertension on Longitudinal Trends in Blood Pressure and Plasma Metabolic Profile

Abstract

The mechanism underlying the association of parental hypertension with cardiovascular events in offspring remains unclear. In this study, the effects of parental hypertension on longitudinal trends of blood pressure and metabolic parameters were examined by mixed-effects model analysis. From 1977 to 2006, 5198 subjects participated in the Tanno-Sobetsu Study, and we selected 2607 subjects (1095 men and 1512 women) for whom data on parental history of hypertension were available. In both men and women with and without parental hypertension, systolic blood pressure and fasting blood glucose levels consistently increased from the third to eighth decades of life, whereas diastolic blood pressure and serum triglyceride levels followed biphasic (inverted U shape) time courses during that period. However, the relationships between the parameters and age were significantly shifted upward (by ≈5.3 mm Hg in systolic blood pressure, 2.8 mm Hg in diastolic blood pressure, 0.30 mmol/L in blood glucose, and 0.09 mmol/L in triglyceride) in the group with parental hypertension compared with those in the group without parental hypertension. Both paternal and maternal histories of hypertension were determinants of systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure, and there was no significant interaction between the sides of parental history. There were no significant effects of parental hypertension on age-dependent or body mass index-dependent changes in serum low-density lipoprotein cholesterol or high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level. The present results indicate that parental hypertension has an age-independent impact on elevation of blood pressure, plasma glucose, and triglyceride levels, which may underlie the reported increase in cardiovascular events by family history of hypertension.