Children with high blood pressure at higher risk for ADHD, learning disabilities

From The Med Guru:

BALTIMORE -- Children with high blood pressure are at an increased risk of developing learning disabilities and Attention Deficient Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), a new study has revealed.

The study, carried out by researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center, warns that kids who have high blood pressure are four times more likely to develop learning disabilities and ADHD- a combination of Hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattentiveness- than children who are not suffering from hypertension.

The study findings also demonstrated that hypertensive kids are also more likely to have a higher body mass index (BMI), an indicator of body fat. And, if kids are both hypertensive and obese, they are also more likely to develop anxiety and depression, suggested the findings.

Study details
To reach their findings, researchers followed 201 children aged 10 to 18 years who had been diagnosed with high blood pressure. Out of total participants, 100 were diagnosed with hypertension while 101 were found to either not have hypertension or to have white coat high blood pressure- which can be described as having normal blood pressure that shoots up when nervous in an exam room.

The researchers found that almost 28 percent of children with hypertension had a learning disability, and 20 percent had ADHD. Some of those children had both a learning disability and ADHD, so the researchers calculated that, in total, 40 percent of study subjects with hypertension had a learning disability and/or ADHD.

"This apparent association between hypertension and learning problems is particularly important in light of the recent increase in hypertension in children in this country that has occurred as a result of the dramatic rise in obesity,” pointed out Dr. Marc Lande, a pediatric nephrologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and lead author of the study.

During the study, Lande’s team observed that hypertensive children were not as good at complicated, goal-directed tasks as those without hypertension. They even had more working memory problems and were less adept at planning, the study findings showed.

Further, the hypertensive kids who were also obese were more likely to have anxiety and depression too.

Lande said that more research is needed to determine what causes the connection between the conditions.

"Clinicians should be aware that these conditions commonly occur together," he said. "More studies investigating the potential association between hypertension and neurocognitive deficits are definitely needed."

Lande’s team presented their findings at the Pediatric Academic Society meeting in Baltimore, US.