[Future of blood pressure in young adults during a 15-year follow-up]

Tracking of BP and their determinants were investigated among 2,752 young adults, aged 20-35 years (1,209 men and 1,543 women) in a longitudinal study conducted since 1974 at the Center for Preventive Medicine in Nancy-Vandoeuvre. Prevalence of hypertension (BP > 160/95 mmHg or hypertensive drugs) rose over 15 years from 2.1% to 6.8%. Subjects with antihypertensive drugs were about 3.5% after 15 years of follow up (mean age at the fourth examination: 44 years). Coefficients correlation between initial BP and BP at 5, 10 and 15 years were 0.43, 0.38 and 0.35 for systolic BP, 0.28, 0.24 and 0.26 for diastolic BP in population without antihypertensive drugs. The part of variance for BP at the fourth examination explained by variables from previous examinations was low (27% for systolic BP and 13 or 17% according to sex for diastolic BP). The main variable in the regression was always the BP at the third examination; 69.3% of subjects with high BP (> 140/90 mmHg or treated for hypertension) were well classified in a discriminant analysis. These results underline the difficulty to predict BP and hypertension in a general population, suggest to take into account pathogenic predictors in further studies and allow us to propose selective prevention of future hypertensive.