[Round-the-clock blood pressure measurements in 352 persons--a reference material]

The aim of this study was to establish reference values for 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure in a Danish population stratified for gender and age in the decades from 20 to 79 years of age. A sample of 352 persons, 179 men and 173 women randomly selected from the local community register, age 20-79 years underwent 24-h ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. For men age < 50 daytime ambulatory blood pressure (median) was 125/79 mmHg and night time was 106/65 mmHg, for women the respective pressures were 113/77 mmHg and 97/64 mmHg. For men age > or = 50 daytime ambulatory blood pressure was 133/83 mmHg and night time was 124/86 mmHg, for women the respective pressures were 122/83 mmHg and 105/65 mmHg. Presently, we can only relate cardiovascular risk to clinic blood pressure. Therefore we have calculated corresponding ambulatory blood pressure values to WHO's upper limit 160/90 mmHg for normal blood pressure in the clinic and found 154/87 mmHg for daytime and 134/74 mmHg at night. For a clinic pressure of 95 mmHg the corresponding daytime value was 91 mmHg, for 100 mmHg it was 95 mmHg.