American Kids' Blood Pressure Creeps Up

The ranks of US children with dangerously high blood pressure and hypertension have been growing for 20 years, reversing a decades-long trend, says a new study that tracks the effects of youth obesity. Hypertension, which usually doesn't develop until patients are in their 30s or 40s, is a leading cause of heart attack and stroke, the Washington Post reports.

More and more children are developing traditionally "adult" ailments such as type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol; a researcher calls the blood pressure findings "another piece of evidence suggesting that the obesity epidemic will likely turn into a heart disease epidemic." Less than 6% of American children were obese in 1963; by 2003, the figure had climbed to 17%. (More childhood obesity stories.)