Parental longevity and offspring's home blood pressure: the Ohasama study

: J Hypertens. 2009 Oct 13. [Epub ahead of print]
Parental longevity and offspring's home blood pressure: the Ohasama study.Watanabe Y, Metoki H, Ohkubo T, Hirose T, Kikuya M, Asayama K, Inoue R, Hara A, Obara T, Hoshi H, Totsune K, Imai Y.
aDepartment of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Japan bDepartment of Medical Genetics, Japan cDepartment of Planning for Drug Development and Clinical Evaluation, Japan dDepartment of Medical Informatics, Tohoku University Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Medicine, Japan eTohoku University Institute for International Advanced Research and Education, Japan fTohoku University 21st Century COE Program 'Comprehensive Research and Education Center for Planning of Drug Development and Clinical Evaluation', Sendai, Japan gOhasama Hospital, Hanamaki, Japan.

OBJECTIVE: Longevity is clustered in particular families. Some studies using conventional blood pressure (BP) reported an association between parental longevity and offspring's BP. No study has used self-measurement of BP at home (home BP). We examined the association between parental longevity and home BP values of adult Japanese offspring. METHOD: Home and conventional BPs were measured in 1961 residents aged 40 years and over in the general population of Ohasama, Japan. Information about the ages of offspring's parents (age at death or current age) was obtained from a standardized questionnaire. RESULTS: The mean +/- SD values of systolic/diastolic home BP in offspring whose mothers died at less than 69 years of age, at 69-84 years of age, and in offspring whose mothers were alive at age 84 years were 127.4 +/- 13.2/76.2 +/- 9.1, 124.8 +/- 15.0/74.4 +/- 10.0, and 123.4 +/- 15.2/74.4 +/- 10.3 mmHg (P = 0.0002/0.009), respectively. Corresponding values in offspring whose fathers died at less than 66 years of age, at 66-80 years of age, and in offspring whose fathers were alive at age 80 years were 125.7 +/- 15.2/75.6 +/- 10.6, 124.7 +/- 14.1/75.0 +/- 9.2 and 122.4 +/- 14.6/73.6 +/- 9.5 mmHg (P = 0.001/0.003), respectively. Multivariate analysis demonstrated associations that were only weakly observed for conventional BP values (conventional BP: P = 0.3/0.4 for maternal and P = 0.3/0.3 for paternal longevity; home BP: P = 0.05/0.2 for maternal and P = 0.0004/0.007 for paternal longevity). CONCLUSION: Parental premature death was significantly associated with higher home BP levels in adult offspring, suggesting that parental longevity might be a useful additional marker for screening adult offspring at higher risk of hypertension.