Risk factors for the development of essential hypertension: long-term follow-up study in junior high school students in Niigata, Japan.

We measured the BP in junior high school students (12-15 years of age) during 1960-65. In 1991 we sent questionnaires by post and received 110 replies for previously normotensive subjects (NT group) and 91 for previously hypertensive subjects (HT group). The frequency of current hypertension was 5.5% (6 of 110) in the NT group and 20.9% (19 of 91) in the HT group (P < 0.001). Development of hypertension was related to obesity in the NT group and to a family history of hypertension and to drinking and smoking habits in both groups. These findings suggest that it may be better to measure BP in junior high school students to identify hypertensives and that we need social education of the young to stress the importance of BP measurement and the influences of obesity, smoking and overdrinking on the development of essential hypertension.