Abstract

BLANCO-CEDRES, Lucila; VASQUEZ, Maura; LOPEZ-BLANCO, Mercedes  and  MACIAS-TOMEI, Coromoto. Modelización longitudinal de la presión arterial sistólica en función del índice de masa corporal, "ritmo" de maduración, colesterol y triglicéridos en participantes del Estudio Longitudinal de Caracas. Gac Méd Caracas [online]. 2003, vol.111, n.3, pp.212-219. ISSN 0367-4762.

In the Caracas Longitudinal Study, data from 50 boys and 28 girls belonging to the 12 year-old cohort, were analyzed to study the relationship among four consecutive examinations of the body mass index, cholesterol, triglycerides and systolic blood pressure. The analysis was based on the generalized estimating equation model that simultaneously examined cross-sectional and longitudinal relationship between the explanatory variables and systolic blood pressure. Additionally, "tempo" or maturation was considered as a covariate; the inclusion of this variable required the assignment of a scale value to each of the categories of the variable, which was done by the reciprocal averaging method. The results showed sexual dimorphism in systolic blood pressure over the 4-year period, average systolic blood pressure was higher in boys than in girls, this difference reached 2.3 mmHg. Average systolic blood pressure over 4 examinations was positively associated with maturation, baseline body mass index and cholesterol. Longitudinal changes in the covariates were not significantly related to longitudinal change in systolic blood pressure.

Keywords : Longitudinal modelling; Systolic blood pressure; Body mass index; Sexual maturation; Cholesterol; Reciprocal averaging.