'High blood pressure may affect kids' learning abilities

Updated on: Friday, November 12, 2010

Now a recent study claims that high blood pressure could also affect children's mental development.

Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Centre found that besides the heart risk, children with hypertension are four times more likely to suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Dr Heather Adams, an assistant professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at URMC and an author of the study, said their study found that "children with hypertension are more likely to have ADHD".

"Although retrospective, this work adds to the growing evidence of an association between hypertension and cognitive function," Dr Adams was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail.

According to the researchers, there isn't a defined series of measurements for blood pressure in children. It's found that children with high blood pressure had readings that were higher than 95 per cent of their peers who were the same age, height and weight.

For the study, published in the journal Pediatrics, the researchers looked at 201 patients aged between 10 and 18 years who had been referred to the hypertension clinic at URMC's Children's Hospital.

They found 101 had hypertension, or sustained high blood pressure. Of them, 28 per cent had learning disabilities, well above the general population's rate of five per cent.

Previous studies excluded children with ADHD because medications can increase blood pressure.

However, URMC researchers included them this time because it is also possible that the higher rate of ADHD among children with hypertension is a reflection of mental
development problems caused by hypertension.

They found even when ADHD was factored out of the analyses, there was still a higher rate of learning disabilities in the hypertensive, compared to the non-hypertensive group of children.

"With each study, we're getting closer to understanding the relationship between hypertension and cognitive function in children," the researchers said.

"This study underscores the need for us to continue to tease out the potential risk children with hypertension have for learning difficulties at a time when learning is so
important.

"It may be too early to definitively link hypertension and learning disabilities, but it isn't too early for us, as clinicians, to ensure our paediatric patients with hypertension are getting properly screened for cognitive issues."

'High blood pressure may affect kids' learning abilities

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