Familial aggregation of blood pressure in 558 adopted children.

Blood pressure was measured in each member of 398 French-Canadian families with at least one adopted child of the same ethnic origin. Measurements were made at home by a nurse, usually with the subject seated. One comparison per family between parents and randomly chosen index children was made, using age- and sex-adjusted scores. The correlation in blood pressure scores between parents and natural children was highly significant (P less than 0.001), at 10.2% for systolic and 13.7% for diastolic in 140 homes with at least one natural child, but the correlation between parents and adopted children was nonsignificant, at 0.81% and 1.0%, in 398 homes with at least one adopted child. The correlation between pairs of natural children was significant (P less than 0.05), at 7.84% for systolic and 8.41% for diastolic, in 80 homes with more than one natural child but nonsignificant, at 0.49% and 1.69%, respectively, for pairs of adopted children in 138 families with more than one adopted child. It is concluded that heredity explains most of the familial resemblance of blood pressure in children.