The number of children who are developing high blood pressure is steadily rising, according to new research. Health authorities are concerned at this steady rise. Developing high blood pressure at an early age drastically increases the risk of heart problems, stroke and an array of other health problems later in life (and sometimes not that much later).

Researchers looked at data from nationally representative surveys of over 5,000 kids. They found that for the first time ever, children's blood pressure in the USA is gradually going up. Each increase over time is small, the problem is that each time it is going up - there is no let up in the rise. Add this to the rise in childhood diabetes (type 2), overweight and obesity rates and the lack of physical activity among the majority of US kids and you have all the ingredients of a future adult population with serious health problems. We are looking at problems some adults experience in middle age being experienced by children.

Barbara Alving, of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, said "What we're doing is shifting this burden of disease to a younger age. We see this new data as a wake-up call. It's time to pay attention to this."

Authorities are so alarmed that they are looking at ways of getting parents to screen their kids more aggressively so that treatment can be done earlier if there are problems. For the first time ever in US history there will be guidelines for 'hypertension in children'. The guidelines will come out in July or August of this year.

In a decade, average kids' systolic pressure rose from 104.6 to 106, diastolic pressure went up from 58.4 to 61.7. If this is an average, there must be many children who are peaking at much higher rates, say many experts.

You can read about this research in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association).

Experts say that a mere 1 to 2 point rise in blood pressure means a 10% rise in the risk of becoming an adult with high blood pressure problems.