Even modest weight loss can help curb high blood pressure in children

High blood pressure is not necessarily a problem that begins in adulthood -- kids can have it too. Yet testing children for high blood pressure isn’t routine. Maybe it should be.

Researchers recently embarked on a comprehensive screening program of kids in West Virginia, where a higher-than-average number of people die from heart disease. The Coronary Artery Risk Detection in Appalachian Communities, or CARDIAC, project found that 1 in 5 of the 62,000 fifth-graders tested at school had high blood pressure, a risk factor for heart disease. While researchers cautioned that such screenings “do not diagnose,” the findings do point to the need for ongoing assessments.

One way to keep a child’s blood pressure down is to keep his or her weight down, as the Health Notes blog for the Newport News Daily Press notes in “High blood pressure in overweight children.”

For more on avoiding high blood pressure in kids, read the tips from the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford.

--Mary Forgone / For the Los Angeles Times