Blood pressure in children with diabetes mellitus

Blood pressure measurements were evaluated in 151 children aged 2-19 years old with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (DM) of a duration of few months to 15 1/2 years. Compared with a reference group, the diabetic children had lower diastolic blood pressure (DBP) shortly after start of DM. There was no difference for the systolic blood pressure (SBP). After duration of diabetes of 5 years there were no significant differences in SBP and only significantly lower DBP in girls (median difference 5 mmHg, p less than 0.01), while the difference in boys is insignificant (median difference 2 mmHg, p = 0.32). In a model describing the intraindividual variation in blood pressure and its dependence on age, weight and height it was found that age was insignificant when weight and height were included. For DBP height was also insignificant when weight was included. For the 9 children with retinal microaneurysms the average SBP was significantly higher than expected for diabetic children of that weight and height.