Blood Pressure Lab Write-Up

Question 1: State a problem about the relationship of age and gender to blood pressure.
Other factors such as family history, alcohol consumption and weight influence blood pressure.

Question 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.
The average blood pressure in a group of people will rise as older males are added to the group.

Question 3: How will you use the investigation screen to test your hypothesis? What steps will you follow? What data will you record?
I will add more males in the age group 45-54 to the pool. I will record the new average blood pressure as I add more people from this pool.

Question 4: Analyze the result of your experiment. Explain any patterns you observed.
Average blood pressure rises with more males in the age group 45-54, but how much it rises depends on each individual's personal medical history.

Question 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 more people added to the group with a high salt diet, obesity or alcohol consumption, the higher the average blood pressure. Though it seems that older males tend to have a higher blood pressure, blood pressure is more effected by the medical history.

Question 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?
As previously stated, there seems to be more men in the age group of 45-54 with higher than normal blood pressures. This is due to the prevalence of less than favorable medical histories.

Question 7: List risk factors associated with the hypertension. Based on your observation, which risk factor do you think is most closely associated with hypertension?
Risk factors associated with hypertension are:
Obesity
High salt diet
Alcohol consuption
Family history
Lack of exercise
The risk factor most closely associated with hypertension is weight.

Question 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?
When a person is obese, the heart must work harder to pump blood to all areas of the body. This causes the blood pressure to be higher. Any other risk factor added to this one can cause an increase.