Correlates of the hemodynamic determinants of blood pressure.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the association of sex, race, lean body mass, and fat mass with the hemodynamic determinants of blood pressure, including stroke volume, heart rate, and total peripheral vascular resistance. The study included 201 subjects aged 6 to 17 years, 105 of whom were male and 98 of whom were black. Lean body mass and fat mass were both significant (P < .05) independent determinants of stroke volume, cardiac output, and total peripheral vascular resistance. However, the direction of the effect of lean body mass was opposite for stroke volume and cardiac output compared with that of total peripheral vascular resistance. The direct relationship of lean body mass with systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) (regression coefficients, 0.55 +/- 0.05 for SBP and 0.47 +/- 0.05 for DBP) indicates that the effect of lean body mass on cardiac output may predominate. Lean body mass explained substantially more of the variance of the hemodynamic variables than did fat mass. After control for the effects of body size, male subjects had higher heart rate and cardiac output, and female subjects had higher vascular resistance. White subjects had higher stroke volume and cardiac output, and black subjects had higher peripheral vascular resistance. This study demonstrates that lean body mass is a more important correlate of the hemodynamic determinants of blood pressure than is fat mass and that sex and race have significant independent relationships with the hemodynamic determinants of blood pressure in children and adolescents.