1. State a problem about the relationship of age and gender to blood pressure.
The problem today is that the older we get the less active we become resulting in obesity. When we are younger we do more physical activities like sports, gym class, and physical jobs, which keeps us in shape. Not only are you less active with age people tend to drink or smoke more which all contribute to high blood pressure and obesity. Over time plaque builds up in our arteries from consuming fatty, oily foods. With these factors in play the result is obesity that leads to hypertension. Men tend to have a higher chance of hypertension (high blood pressure) with age than women because they tend to consume more food which is usually more unhealthy foods, like the fats and lipids and also alcohol.
2.Use your knowledge about the heart and the circulatory system to make a hypothesis about how the average blood pressure for a group of people would be affected by manipulating the age and gender of the group members.
I believe that as the age of a group of the same sex gets older the number of patients with obesity caused by high salt diets and or alcohol will rise as well as the number of patients who have high blood pressure. If two groups of the same are but opposite sex are compared to each other I believe that the group of men will have a higher number of people with high blood pressure.
3.How will you use the investigation screen to test your hypothesis? What steps will you follow? What data will you record?
I will start by taking the blood pressure of both men and women at each age group and recording the average systolic and diastolic pressures for both groups men and women. After recording all the averages I will look at the patients in each age group that have high blood pressure and check their chart to determine if they are over weight, have high sodium diets, drink alcohol, exercise, or have a family history of hypertension. I will also check some of the patients that don’t have high blood pressure to get an idea of their life styles as well. I will record how many have high blood pressure and of those how may live life styles with the above criteria. To determine if the number of patients with high blood pressure goes up with age and gender.
4.Analyze the result of your experiment. Explain any patterns you observed.
The major pattern that I saw was that with age the number of patients with high blood pressure increased in men and women. I also noticed that the number of men with high blood pressure than women at each age group was higher. Another pattern was that people who consumed alcohol or high sodium diets with little or no exercise had high blood pressure and most were also over weight. The patients with average blood pressure where not living high sodium, alcohol intake life styles. Even though having a family history of hypertension was a factor to high blood pressure it was not the most common.
5.Did the result of your experiment support your hypothesis? Why or why not? Based on your experiment what conclusion can you draw about the relationship of age and gender to group blood pressure averages?
The data and results did support my original hypothesis and from this I come to the conclusion that sodium, alcohol, lack of exercise and obesity leads to high blood pressure whether you have a family history or not. Also that with age the risk of having high blood pressure increases dramatically if living this type of lifestyle.
6.During the course of your experiment, did you obtain any blood pressure reading that were outside of the normal range for the group being tested? What did you notice on the medical charts for these individuals that might explain their high reading?
When analyzing the age groups and genders I noticed that between 11-34 there was only two cases of high blood pressure one being a women and the other a male. In both instances they had a family history and high sodium diets. The male was also over weight and lacked in doing exercise. It wasn't until the age group of 35-44 I noticed a huge increase in the number of high blood pressure patients. In the group of women there was just one, but in the male group there was five. Out of the five men two had a family history one of which was over weight, lacking exercise, and consumed alcohol, two had high sodium diets, and the last one was over weight. lacking exercise and consumed alcohol. The next age group 45-54 there were two women and five men. Both women were over weight. Two of the five men were over weight and had a family history of hypertension. One had a high intake sodium and alcohol diet, lacked exercise and was over weight while the last two one over weight and the other lacked exercise in his life. The rest of the patients in every age group that did not have high blood pressure had a low sodium intake, exercised, didn't consume alcohol and were not over weight. A couple patients did have a family history of hypertension but had an average blood pressure. Overall it seemed that those with high blood pressure had one or more of the following; high sodium intake, alcohol consumption, over weight or little exercise life styles while those with average blood pressure were not following that type of life style.
7.List risk factors associated with the hypertension. Based on your observation, which risk factor do you think is most closely associated with hypertension?
The risk factors associated with hypertension are high sodium diets, lack of exercise, alcohol consumption, obesity, family history, and finally age and gender. 22% of the males in my experiment had high blood pressure while only .8% of the women had high blood pressure. This showed that males have high blood pressure than women and a higher chance for hypertension. With age the statistics only got worse with 50
% of the males over 35 having high blood pressure and 15% of women over 35 having high blood pressure. Age and gender was found to be the closet factor to high blood pressure. With out taking obesity into consideration the second major factor was a tie between lack of exercise and family history.
8.What effect might obesity have on blood pressure? Does obesity alone cause a person to be at risk for high blood pressure? What other factors, in combination with obesity, might increase a person's risk for high blood pressure?
Obesity is a large factor and can alone cause a person to be at risk for high blood pressure because when a person is over weight they have more fat on their bodies and in there arteries. Causing their heart to work harder which can result in high blood pressure or even a heart attack. I have mentioned obesity throughout my experiment showing how patients with high blood pressure were usually over weight. In fact 60% of the people with high blood pressure were over weight. While some patients were over weight and had other factors that contribute to high blood pressure a couple were just over weight showing that obesity along is a factor.
In conclusion obesity, sodium, alcohol, and lack of exercise could be a deadly combination. To avoid high blood pressure, heart attacks and other health issues your life style should be watched carefully. Foods high in sodium, fats, and lipids should be minimized and daily exercise is highly recommended to keep the heart working at its best. The less crap and damage we do to our bodies the longer and healthier the will work.
Work Cited:
http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/virtual_labs/BL_08/BL_08.html
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