Associations of obesity and serum leptin level with elevated blood pressure among urban secondary school students of a northeastern city of India: A baseline observation

BACKGROUND: Elevated blood pressure has been found to be associated with body mass index (BMI) and serum leptin levels among adults. But there is a paucity of reports regarding such associations among adolescents. OBJECTIVES: To estimate the prevalence of prehypertension and hypertension and its associations with BMI and serum leptin levels among the secondary school going students of the Agartala Municipal Corporation area. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This school-based cross-sectional study was conducted from 1(st) April 2018 to 31(st) December 2018, among 1,000 students studying in different secondary level schools located in Agartala municipal corporation area chosen by multistage sampling ensuring proportionate representation in the sample. RESULT: Prevalence of prehypertension and hypertension were found to be 42.40% and 15.70%, respectively, 55.20% had normal, 22.80% had low, and 22.00% had high BMI. Serum leptin levels were found to be normal among 54.70% of the students, whereas, 36.70% had high and 8.60% had low levels, respectively. Logistic regression analysis has identified male sex (OR = 0.231, 95% CI = 0.172–0.310, P = 0.000) and high BMI (OR = 4.289, 95% CI = 2.857–6.440, P = 0.000) as the significant determinants of elevated blood pressure, but the effect of serum leptin level and family history of hypertension did not attain the level of statistical significance. CONCLUSION: Prevalence of prehypertension and hypertension among urban school-going adolescents were found to be 42.40% and 15.70%, respectively and were significantly associated with their sex and BMI and serum leptin level, but regression analysis failed to detect any significant effect of serum leptin level in determining the blood pressure of the study subjects.