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Elevated systolic blood pressure is associated with low serum 25‐hydroxyvitamin D concentrations of children in the United States: NHANES 2005–2006

Although a negative association between 25‐hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] concentrations and blood pressure has been found in adults, a limited number of studies have examined the relationship in children. Therefore, the purposed of this study was to determine if serum 25(OH)D concentrations of children were correlated with blood pressured (BP) and the risk of prehypertension and hypertension. Using a nationally representative sample of children age 8–18 year from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2005–2006 (n=2277), serum 25(OH) concentrations were compared to diastolic, systolic, and mean arterial BP. Prehypertension was defined as BP ≥ 90th to < 95th percentile and hypertension as ≥ 95th percentile by age, height and gender national BP percentiles norms for children. All statistical analyses were conducted using the Statistical Analysis Software (SAS) (version 9.4, SAS Institute Inc, Cary, NC, 2010–12). The overall statistical significance was set at level of less than .05 (α <.05). Based on serum 25(OH)D levels, 7.0 ± 1.2% of the children were vitamin D deficient (<12 ng/mL) and 71.7 ± 2.4% were vitamin D sufficient (>20 ng/mL). Vitamin D deficient children had higher systolic blood pressure (111.4 ± 0.8 mmHg) than vitamin D sufficient children (106.8 ± 0.6 mmHg) (P< 0.05). Analysis of covariance (n=2277; 8–18 yr) controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, and income indicated that serum 25(OH)D concentrations were negatively associated with systolic BP (standardize β = −0.061; P = 0.02), but not associated with diastolic or mean arterial BP. Overall, a relatively small percentage of the children age 8 – 18 yr had prehypertension (10.8 ± 1.0%) or hypertension (8.4 ±1.1%). However, a higher percentage of vitamin D deficient children had prehypertension (12.6%) or hypertension (16.4%) compared to the percentage of vitamin D sufficient children with prehypertension (9.1%) or hypertension (7.4%). In conclusion, low serum 25(OH)D concentrations in children were associated with elevated systolic BP and an increased risk of prehypertension and hypertension.