Online Lab Three -- Blood Pressure

As I was not able to get the website to send me the official results of my lab, I will post my table, graph, and journal questions and answers.

Here is an enlarged version of my table.

Age Range	Male Systolic			Male Diastolic	Female Systolic	Female Diastolic
11 to 17	118			76	118	76
18 to 24	129			81	117	76
25 to 34	132			83	117	77
35 to 44	133			84	125	80
45 to 54	139			89	133	83

Here is an online picture of my table

Here is an online picture of my graph.

Journal Questions

1) State a problem about the relationship of age and gender to blood pressure.

According to Mayo Clinic, more men than women have high blood pressure until age 60. However, from 60 on, more women than men have high blood pressure. The overall risk in both genders rises as age increases.

2) Use your knowledge about the heart and the circulatory system to make a hypothesis about how the average blood pressure for a group of people would be affected by manipulating the age and gender of the group members.

I think that the older the test group is, the more hypertension will be found. As for gender, I think that males under 60 will have more cases of hypertension than women of the same age group.

3) How will you use the investigation screen to test your hypothesis? What steps will you follow? What data will you record?

I will begin with the youngest age group, test both male and female groups, and continue to work my way up in age groups, taking both male and female measurements. I will also check every person’s medical history chart and note how it affects their readings. I will take special notice of the medical history charts of those who have abnormal blood pressure readings, as some of the information on the chart may clue me in as to why their blood pressure readings are abnormal. I will find the average measurements for each age group and gender (in each age group).

4) Analyze the result of your experiment. Explain any patterns you observed.

When age increased, so did the number of cases of hypertension. However, there were always more cases of male hypertension than of female hypertension in each age category. Also, I noticed that you needed to have more and greater problems to have hypertension in the younger age categories. However, the older the age categories were, the less problems each hypertension patient had (e.g. 47 year old male had 141/92 blood pressure, and the only thing not normal on his medical history chart was that he was four pounds underweight).

5) Did the result of your experiment support your hypothesis? Why or why not? Based on your experiment what conclusion can you draw about the relationship of age and gender to group blood pressure averages?

Yes, my experiment supported my hypothesis, in that there were more cases of hypertension in males than in females, and the occurrences of hypertension rose in both sex categories as age increased. I have drawn the following results from this experiment: men have more cases of hypertension than women do (under the age of 60), the percentages of cases of hypertension rose with age in both males and females, the older hypertension patients tended to have less health issues than the younger hypertension patients.

6) During the course of your experiment, did you obtain any blood pressure reading that were outside of the normal range for the group being tested? What did you notice on the medical charts for these individuals that might explain their high reading?

Yes, I got 22 abnormal readings total. Depending on the individual, there were five possible reasons for hypertension: overweight cases (10 occurrences), family history of hypertension (10 occurrences), high-salt diet (10 occurrences), lack of exercise (10 occurrences), and alcohol consumption (8 occurrences).

7) List risk factors associated with the hypertension. Based on your observation, which risk factor do you think is most closely associated with hypertension?

The risk factors are as in the last question: obesity, family history of hypertension, high-salt diet, lack of exercise, and alcohol consumption. However, in my hypertension cases, the occurrences of the risk factors were evenly spread out: overweight cases (10 occurrences), family history of hypertension (10 occurrences), high-salt diet (10 occurrences), lack of exercise (10 occurrences), and alcohol consumption (8 occurrences). Except for alcohol occurring slightly less than the rest, all of the risk factors seem to be closely associated with and evenly distributed in hypertension.

8) What effect might obesity have on blood pressure? Does obesity alone cause a person to be at risk for high blood pressure? What other factors, in combination with obesity, might increase a person's risk for high blood pressure?

In the ten cases of obesity that were in my lab results, all but two also had lack of exercise, a high-salt diet, and/or alcohol consumption. Among the obese hypertension patients, six lacked exercise, five consumed alcohol, four had it in their family history, and three had a high-salt diet. As evidenced by these results, many cases of hypertension are not caused by obesity alone. Rather, obese people have a greater possibility of developing hypertension if they also have at least one of the above-mentioned causes as well. Also, three of the patients who had normal blood pressure were obese. So, I think that obesity can contribute to hypertension, but hypertension is much more likely if obesity is combined with at least one other risk factor.