Overview

• Presented at the American Heart Association Hypertension 2025 meeting and published in JAMA, the analysis found a 40% to 50% higher risk of cardiovascular death by the mid‑50s for children with elevated or hypertensive readings at age seven.
• Moderately higher childhood readings within the normal range were also linked to increased risk, with 13% higher risk for systolic and 18% for diastolic levels.
• Researchers assessed 38,252 participants from the Collaborative Perinatal Project, converting age‑7 readings to American Academy of Pediatrics percentiles and linking outcomes to the National Death Index through 2016, with 2,837 total deaths including 504 cardiovascular.
• Among 150 sibling groups, the sibling with the higher age‑7 blood pressure had a greater cardiovascular mortality risk, indicating shared family environment did not fully explain the association.
• Experts say the findings support routine pediatric blood‑pressure monitoring and early heart‑healthy prevention, while noting limits including a single measurement, a primarily Black and white 1959–1965 cohort, and potential constraints on generalizability.