Cigarette smoking and ambulatory blood pressure: a case–control study in normotensives

Hypertension and subsequent genitourinary and gynecologic cancers risk: a population-based cohort study

Although a relationship between hypertension and the development of renal cancer and other types of cancer have been proposed for decades, the results of epidemiologic studies remain inconclusive. This study was conducted to evaluate the association between hypertension and genitourinary and gynecologic cancers in Taiwan.In this study, we conducted a populated-based retrospective cohort study by using data from the Taiwanese National Health Insurance program. The study period was from 2000 to 2011, and the cohort comprised 111,704 insurants: 57,961 patients with hypertension and 53,743 patients without hypertension. A Cox proportional hazard regression analysis was performed to estimate the effects of hypertension on genitourinary and gynecologic cancers risk.Among the patients with hypertension, the risks of developing renal and uterine corpus cancers were significantly higher in the hypertension group than they were in the nonhypertension group. Further stratified analyses by sex, age, and hypertension duration revealed distinct cancer-specific patterns. Higher cancer risk appears to be more obvious among younger hypertensive patients with longer follow-up time.The results of this study indicate that Taiwanese patients with hypertension have higher risks for some types of cancer, and cancer-specific patterns vary by sex, age, and hypertension duration.

Trends in high blood pressure prevalence in Greek adolescents

A school-based screening with anthropometric and blood pressure (BP) measurements was performed in adolescents aged 12-17 years in the island of Samos, Greece, in 2004 and also in 2007. A total of 446 adolescents were included in the analysis in 2004 and 558 in 2007. The 2007 study population had higher levels of body mass index (BMI) (P<0.05) and systolic and diastolic BP (P<0.001), compared with 2004. The prevalence of high BP was 16.1% in 2004 and 22.9% in 2007 (P<0.01 for difference). Mean age-, sex- and BMI-adjusted BP increase was 4.1/10.5 mm Hg (systolic/diastolic). In multivariate analysis, BMI, male gender and age, but also modifiable factors (lack of physical activity, breakfast skipping, smoking and low milk consumption) were associated with increased BP levels in the study population. These data indicate that further to BMI, other factors such as adverse lifestyle and dietary habits appear to be associated with elevated BP levels in adolescents. Moreover, rising trends seem to characterize the prevalence of high BP.