Age dependency of peripheral and central systolic blood pressures: cross-sectional and longitudinal observations in a Chinese population

Few studies have described the age-related changes in both peripheral and central systolic blood pressures (SBPs) in populations. We addressed this issue in 1066 women and 978 men, all untreated (mean age, 45.1 years; 27.2% hypertensive) and randomly selected from a Chinese population, of whom 369 and 330 underwent a repeat examination after 3.6 years (median). In cross-sectional analyses, central SBP increased more with age than peripheral SBP in women below age 50 (1.21 vs. 1.01 mm Hg per year; P<0.001) and in men below age 60 (0.73 vs. 0.48 mm Hg per year; P<0.001), whereas in older women (0.64 vs. 0.58 mm Hg per year; P=0.27) and older men (0.45 vs. 0.44 mm Hg per year; P=0.79), the slopes of central and peripheral SBPs on age were similar. Compared with men, women had steeper (P<0.001) age-related increases in peripheral and central SBPs. Systolic augmentation pressure increased with age, but this increase was substantially smaller (P<0.0001) for peripheral than central augmentation (women, 0.086 vs. 0.45 mm Hg per year; men, 0.083 vs. 0.39 mm Hg per year). In multivariable-adjusted regression, age contributed >= 89.7% of the explained variance in peripheral and central SBPs. In longitudinal analyses, the annual percentage increases from baseline to follow-up in peripheral and central SBP were similar (P >= 0.76) in both women (2.14% vs. 2.16% per year) and men (1.33% vs. 1.34 % per year; P-values for sex difference <= 0.044). In conclusion, in younger subjects assessed cross-sectionally, the age-related increase was larger for central than peripheral SBP, whereas the corresponding cross-sectional estimates in older subjects and the longitudinal estimates in all subjects showed similar age-related increases in central and peripheral SBP. Hypertension Research (2012) 35, 115-122; doi:10.1038/hr.2011.160; published online 15 September 2011