High blood pressure in adolescence is associated with kidney failure in adults, a new study reports.

Israeli researchers studied health records of more than 2.6 million healthy 16- to 19-year-old candidates for military service from 1967 to 2013. Almost 8,000 had a diagnosis of hypertension. Over an average follow-up of 20 years, 2,189 developed renal disease requiring dialysis or kidney transplant.

About half of the young people with hypertension were overweight or obese, which has been shown to be a risk factor for future renal disease. But even after controlling for body mass index and for sex, age and socioeconomic status, they found that hypertension in adolescence doubled the risk for end-stage renal disease in adulthood. The risk was similar even when those with severe hypertension — 160/100 or higher — were eliminated from the analysis.

The study, in JAMA Internal Medicine, found that the risk was modest. Few teenagers in the group had hypertension, and fewer still developed kidney disease later in life.