Blood Pressure Lab

State a problem about the relationship of age and gender to blood pressure. 

Blood pressure tends to rise with age and males traditionally had higher blood pressure. 

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.

We can affect average blood pressure readings by including more women or a younger age group to lower the readings or an older age group to increase the average blood pressure readings.

How will you use the investigation screen to test your hypothesis? What steps will you follow? What data will you record? I'd record the individual blood pressure readings and compare the group averages. 

The group of individuals will be categorized by gender and age group.  The data recorded would include the systolic and diastolic readings.   

Analyze the result of your experiment. Explain any patterns you observed.

For both the male and female groups, the older age group tended to have higher average readings. However there was exceptions. A few of the individuals within the group had higher than average readings that affected the overall average. Also, the female age group between the age of 18-24 appeared to be in better health.   

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 results did not fully support my hypothesis. Other factors that determine blood pressure averages are health history such as diet and exercise.

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? 

A few individual showed higher than average blood pressure. Their medical charts included family history or other factors.

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 include a family history of hypertension, alcohol use, high salt-intake and lack of exercise.

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 causes the heart to work harder. In addition the fat or cholesterol that accumulates in the arteries can affect blood pressure causing overweight persons to be at higher risk of  having elevated levels of blood pressure In combination with obesity, smoking, drug use, diet, exercise and lifestyle. Too much stress is a contributing factor.