Research confirms that the epidemic of hypertension or high blood pressure in children and adolescents has not bypassed Montenegro either. According to doctors’ data, 10 to 15 percent of adolescents suffer from high blood pressure, and warnings that this disease is becoming more common in children are especially worrying.
Today, obesity is a health problem for children as well, and it is one of the factors that influence the occurrence of hypertension.
Children’s cardiologist, primarius dr sci. Svjetlana Zeković warned for Dnrvne novine that there are numerous observations that indicate that hypertension in adults can start already in childhood, especially in the male population.
Early detection of hypertension at that time would, she says, be the way to a better understanding of its origin, the possibility of prevention and treatment, as well as the prognosis of this disease in adults.
“The exact frequency of essential hypertension (the most common form) in children is not known, it ranges between one and two percent in younger people and even 10 to 15 percent in adolescents, which was also registered in our examined population. Such high figures require blood pressure measurement as part of routine and systematic examinations of children and young people”, explained Zeković.
The definition of hypertension in children and adolescents is an increase in diastolic (heart) blood pressure above the 95th centile value for age, gender and height, confirmed in three measurements, performed in three separate examinations
According to Zeković, hypertensive disease is not rare in children.
“After many years of monitoring the youngest population in our country, it was found out that elevated values at this age are not a passing episode, but most likely threatening hypertension in adults. A child may have hypertension accompanying a primary disease of the kidneys, endocrine system, heart and blood vessels, brain, systemic disease of connective tissue, malignancy or other underlying disease. Then we talk about secondary hypertension. If there is no clear organic cause, it is primary arterial hypertension (AH), which is also called essential”, explained Zeković.