[Relationships between weight, age and arterial pressure in the Mexican population]

Arterial hypertension (AH) constitutes a public health problem. Between 15 and 30% of the population in our country has it. Age and weight have been found as major risk factors for AH but there is little investigation in this regard. We studied families of the Mexican Republic, excluding people younger than 15 years, pregnant women, and any persons having any disease that could affects HA or being under medication. We gave them a questionnaire and took the arterial tension (AT). We calculated Quetelet Index (QI) for weight. We analysed 12259 subjects. The mean arterial tension was 120/77; 123/79 and 119/76 for men and women. We observed an association between age an AT when controlled by QI; and between AT and QI controlling by age. The regression lines had a positive skew different from zero. We propose that there is a relationship between QI an AT independent of age or AT.