America has a hard time trying to hide the country’s hypertension and heart problems. But, according to new studies, the rate seems to sadly be increasing. Rising 27% during a thirteen year period, the American Heart Association has published the statistics on the journal Hypertension.

Because of the hyper body mass and consuming great amounts of sodium, it’s not only adults who are affected, but sadly children as well. And, Bernard Rosner, Ph.D., author of the study and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, has said, “Everyone expects sodium intake will continue to go up,” and “High blood pressure is dangerous in part because many people don’t know they have it.” So, it’s quite important to take check up on your blood pressure as much as you can.

Statistics from the research are horrible to think about. That the blood pressure in boys was significantly elevated, but the rate for girls was higher in the first study. In the second trial, there were more kids with overweight figures, especially girls whom had bigger waistlines.

The most important point to take away from the study was that of the sodium intake of the children. 80% of kids consumed about 2,300 milligrams a day, twice the amount that the AHA has been trying to recommend for quite sometime now. There are 350,000 preventable deaths a year and if the rate of hypertension doesn’t decrease then the risk of stroke, heart disease and kidney failure will increase.