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Obesity programs reduced BP in children regardless of weight loss efficacy
Obesity prevention programs for adolescents reduced blood pressure in most program participants, even if those participants did not lose a significant amount of body weight, according to study results.
Programs that emphasized changes in both diet and physical activity were more effective in improving BP and decreasing body weight when compared with programs that focused on diet- or exercise-exclusive interventions.
Li Cai, PhD student at the Johns Hopkins University, with Youfa Wang, MD, PhD, of the University of Buffalo, and colleagues examined the effects of diet- and exercise-intensive interventions in children and adolescents aged 2 to 18 years. A systematic review and meta-analysis of data from 23 studies that included 18,925 participants showed the effects of interventions on overall adiposity and BP, including separate analyses of systolic BP and diastolic BP.
Youfa Wang
The intervention resulted in an average reduction of –1.64 mm Hg (95% CI, –2.56 to –0.71) for systolic BP and –1.44 mm Hg (95% CI, –2.28 to –0.6) for diastolic BP.
Analysis of the overall health effect of each of the 23 studies demonstrated that 46% of interventions produced similar changes in adiposity and BP outcomes. Notably, 39% of interventions produced the desired reduction on BP, although adiposity did not decrease most participants, according to study findings.
Researchers said one exceptional intervention showed significantly desirable outcomes in reducing adiposity while having significantly undesirable effects on BP.
“It is important to identify obesity intervention programs that can help children develop healthy lifestyles and keep BP at an optimum level. These programs help them avoid many long-term health consequences,” Wang said in a press release.
“Although the BP reductions we found here are small at the individual level, the BP tracking phenomenon suggests that a lower BP value in childhood represents a lower risk of hypertension in adult life,” the researchers wrote. “In addition, every mm Hg decrease in BP decreases the risk of cardiovascular mortality in adults. These facts indicate that our findings have important public health implications.”
Funding: Researchers reported that this study was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the NIH, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. Cai reported receiving support from the China Scholarship Council.
Disclosure: The researchers reported no relevant financial disclosures.