Exercise testing in children as a diagnostic tool of future hypertension: the Odense Schoolchild Study.

Systolic blood pressure response and double product (systolic blood pressure x heart rate) response to a progressive maximal exercise test were evaluated in two groups of children aged 8 to 10 years. One group (normal children, n = 68) consisted of children randomly selected from a subset of the population with a resting blood pressure below the 95th percentile, and the other group (high blood pressure, n = 64) included children with a resting blood pressure at or above the 95th percentile. A rise in systolic blood pressure and in the double product was observed during the ergometric performance in both boys and girls in the normal group, and a similar response was observed in the high blood pressure group. These results suggest that the blood pressure response to exercise in childhood gives no further information about the risk of developing hypertension than a blood pressure measurement at rest.