Daily HealthBeat Tip

Raising kids' blood pressure

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Eat too much and exercise too little, and even teen-agers could be headed toward diabetes and blood pressure problems later in life.

Alan Sinaiko of the University of Minnesota Medical School looked at data on Minneapolis teens with insulin resistance. That's where it takes more than the normal level of insulin to move sugars from the bloodstream into cells. His study in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Kids who had more insulin resistance at 13 had higher blood pressure at 19. So Sinaiko recommends breaking the trend before the kids wind up at risk of heart disease.

"I don't think you can say enough about trying to prevent these things, and that means maintaining good diets, maintaining good weights, and being physically active." (nine seconds)

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: October 20, 2006

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