Sex Differences in BP

Sex-specific analyses of longitudinal BP measures in US cohort studies indicate that blood pressure (BP) measures progress more rapidly in women than in men, beginning early in life. The analyses included 32 833 participants (54% female) spanning ages 5 to 98 years from 1971 to 2014 in 4 community-based US cohort studies. Women compared with men exhibited a steeper increase in BP that began as early as in the third decade and continued through the life course. After adjustment for multiple cardiovascular disease risk factors, these between-sex differences in all BP trajectories persisted. In contrast with the notion that important vascular disease processes in women lag behind men by 10 to 20 years, this early-onset sexual dimorphism may set the stage for later-life cardiovascular diseases that tend to present differently, not simply later, in women compared with men. Source: https://jamanetwork.com/