Nearly14 percent of children in the U.S. have high blood pressure.
For children, there is no single measurement for high blood pressure because blood pressure rises as a child grows.
Researchers have found 75 percent of children with high blood pressure are not diagnosed with the condition.

A study, published in the journal Neurology, is the largest to look at the link between high blood pressure and memory problems.

First came saddle bags and love handles, then muffin tops. Today’s new focus for the body-conscious: cankles.

Blood pressure is the measure of the force of blood as it pushes against the arteries. It’s expressed in two numbers. The first (top) number is the systolic pressure. It’s the force measured while the heart is beating, or pumping blood to the body. The second measure is the diastolic pressure and represents the amount of pressure between beats (while the heart is at rest).

Normal blood pressure is defined as a systolic pressure of less than 120 and a diastolic pressure of less than 90. Hypertension, or high blood pressure is defines as a systolic pressure of 140 or higher or a diastolic pressure of 90 or higher. Patients with a systolic pressure of 120 to 130 or a diastolic pressure of 80 to 89 are said to have pre-hypertension.

No one knows why African-Americans tend to have a higher risk for hypertension. One controversial hypothesis, known as the Middle Passage theory, is that black people who survived the harrowing trip across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa in the holds of ships did so because their bodies were better able to preserve salt, allowing them to avoid death by dehydration. Therefore, the theory goes, some African-Americans have a higher prevalence of “salt-sensitive hypertension”: Their blood pressure increases by unusually high amounts in response to salt.  Isolation of the MYH9 gene does not necessarily refute the theory