Aggregation of blood pressure in Anglo-American and Mexican-American families.

We investigated the aggregation of blood pressure within 95 Anglo-American and 111 Mexican-American families. Degree of genetic relatedness was evaluated by calculating separate correlations for spouses and for each spouse with both same-sex and opposite-sex offspring. In addition, sibling correlations were evaluated. These analyses were performed separately for Anglo-American and Mexican-American families. Replicating earlier findings, correlations between blood pressures of Anglo spouses were nonsignificant. However, there were significant spousal correlations in the Mexican-American group. For Anglo-American families, there were significant associations between blood pressures of fathers and sons and between blood pressures of mothers and daughters. Correlations between blood pressures for opposite-sex parent-child pairs were nonsignificant. In the Mexican-American group, there were significant correlations between fathers' blood pressures and those of both male and female offspring. For mothers, blood pressures were weakly correlated with all other family members. These relationships remained after adjustment for age, body mass index, and measures of dietary habits and activity levels. In general, blood pressure aggregation was greater in Mexican-American families.