White coat hypertension in centenarians

To study white coat (WC) hypertension in centenarians, a cross-sectional surveillance was carried out on Uygurs, a long-lived population in China.

Twenty-four-hour ambulatory blood pressure (BP) monitoring (ABPM) was performed in 33 centenarians (age range, 100 to 113 years) and compared with 100 elderly subjects (age range, 65 to 70 years). All subjects were clinically healthy and capable of self-care. Subjects had no history, signs, or symptoms of cardiovascular disease and were receiving no medical treatments. Office BP, 24-h mean, daytime and night-time BP, pulse pressure, heart rate, standard deviation (SD), and coefficient of variation (CV) of the same variables were extracted from ABPM. The WC effect was defined as the difference between mean office and daytime BP.

Centenarians demonstrated higher prevalence of WC hypertension, compared to elderly group (15% vs. 5%). The WC effect was also greater in centenarians than in elderly subjects, and was more marked for systolic BP than for diastolic BP and heart rate. The WC effect for systolic BP was positively correlated with both SD (r = 0.45, P < .01) and CV (r = 0.55, P < .01) for 24-h systolic BP in centenarians, but not in elderly subjects.

Prevalence of WC hypertension was greater in centenarians than in elderly subjects. The WC effect and BP variation may be increased in centenarians. Previously observed higher BPs seen in very elderly individuals might be explained by the greater impact of WC hypertension.