White coat hypertension in centenarians.
BACKGROUND
To study white coat (WC) hypertension in centenarians, a cross-sectional surveillance was carried out on Uygurs, a long-lived population in China.


METHODS
Twenty-four-hour ambulatory blood pressure (BP) monitoring (ABPM) was performed in 33 centenarians (age range, 100 to 113 years) and compared with 100 elderly subjects (age range, 65 to 70 years). All subjects were clinically healthy and capable of self-care. Subjects had no history, signs, or symptoms of cardiovascular disease and were receiving no medical treatments. Office BP, 24-h mean, daytime and night-time BP, pulse pressure, heart rate, standard deviation (SD), and coefficient of variation (CV) of the same variables were extracted from ABPM. The WC effect was defined as the difference between mean office and daytime BP.


RESULTS
Centenarians demonstrated higher prevalence of WC hypertension, compared to elderly group (15% vs. 5%). The WC effect was also greater in centenarians than in elderly subjects, and was more marked for systolic BP than for diastolic BP and heart rate. The WC effect for systolic BP was positively correlated with both SD (r = 0.45, P < .01) and CV (r = 0.55, P < .01) for 24-h systolic BP in centenarians, but not in elderly subjects.


CONCLUSIONS
Prevalence of WC hypertension was greater in centenarians than in elderly subjects. The WC effect and BP variation may be increased in centenarians. Previously observed higher BPs seen in very elderly individuals might be explained by the greater impact of WC hypertension.
Jumabay
Medet
M
Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Nihon University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan; Department of Internal Medicine, First Affiliated Hospital, Xinjiang Medical University, Urumqi, China. medetj@med.nihon-u.ac.jp
Ozawa
Yukio
Y
Kawamura
Hiroshi
H
Saito
Satoshi
S
Izumi
Yoichi
Y
Mitsubayashi
Hiromi
H
Kasamaki
Yuji
Y
Nakayama
Tomohiro
T
Cheng
Zuheng
Z
Ma
Yitong
Y
Mahumut
Masum
M
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology; D018660:Blood Pressure Monitoring, Ambulatory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D015995:Prevalence