For offspring of hypertensive parents, certain behavioural styles of interacting in relationships might predispose them to essential hypertension or cardiovascular disease

Dr Nicole Frazer

They found that the offspring of parents with high blood pressure who do not cope well in stressful situations react even more negatively to such incidents.

Psychologists from West Virginia University examined the behavioural responses, heart rate and blood pressure of 64 healthy college students during stressful mental activities.

Family history

Half of these had parents with a history of high blood pressure or hypertension. The other half did not.

Those who had a family history of hypertension had higher resting heart rates. They also recorded higher blood pressure levels during the mental tasks and their verbal and non-verbal behaviour was more negative.

This included more rolling of the eyes, sighing and lack of eye contact.

Writing in the journal Health Psychology, Dr Nicole Frazer and colleagues said further research was needed.

But they added: "This suggests that for offspring of hypertensive parents, certain behavioural styles of interacting in relationships might predispose them to essential hypertension or cardiovascular disease."

They suggested that if similar studies backed up their findings, psychologists and other health professionals could draw up programmes to help break the cycle.

They said these could include interventions involving conflict management, relaxation, assertiveness and social skills training.

They suggested that learning such skills could break the cycle of how parents and their children react to stressful situations, which in turn they said would reduce their risk of heart disease later in life.

The authors said: "Further research examining behavioural and cardiovascular response to stress and the development of cardiovascular diseases is needed among offspring of hypertensive parents to allow researchers to determine which factors are most important for developing prevention programmes for persons of hypertensive parentage."