Parental obesity combined with hypertension--an indicator of excess risk of hypertension in offspring. A case-control study in a Swedish primary care district.

Abstract

A case-control study was performed to estimate the excess risk of hypertension in a defined population. The study comprised 121 hypertensive patients, aged 40-59 years, and 138 non-hypertensive controls selected from the same primary care district. Parental obesity combined with hypertension proved to be a stronger risk indicator of hypertension in offspring than parental hypertension itself. Other risk indicators were obesity, hypertension in siblings and a positive family history of myocardial infarction. In order to study the size of the problem we estimated the prevalence of hypertension and borderline hypertension in the district. Patients with these diagnoses amounted to about one fourth of the middle-aged population in the district. More than 80% of the hypertensives had been diagnosed before this study, but only about 20% of the borderline hypertensives were previously known.