A comparison of blood pressure, total cholesterol and cigarette smoking in parents in 1950 and their children in 1970.

Blood pressure and serum cholesterol levels as well as cigarette smoking are compared for parents who were examined in the Framingham Heart Study between 1948 and 1950 and their offspring who were studied in the early 1970s in the Framingham Offspring Study. For ages 30-49 years there are modest but significant differences in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure when mothers are compared to daughters, with the average pressures in the daughters being lower. Blood pressure differences in fathers and sons are not as large, and they disappear when families which include hypertensives are eliminated from the analysis. Total cholesterol levels were found to be significantly lower in both daughters and sons, but the difference was not large after adjusting for changes in methodology. The proportion of cigarette smokers was found to be substantially lower in the sons in all age groups, and modest reductions in cigarette smoking were also noted in all but the oldest (age 45--49 years) group of daughters.