26-OCT-2007
Blood Pressure Impacts Type 2 Diabetes Risk: Study
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women with high blood pressure (hypertension) or increasing blood pressure are at increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes compared with women with low blood pressure, researchers from Boston report.
Lead investigator Dr. David Conen from Harvard Medical School told Reuters Health that this association is independent of obesity and the metabolic syndrome -- a cluster of cardiovascular disease risk factors such as hypertension, obesity and high blood sugar levels.
Although several studies have shown close ties between hypertension and type 2 diabetes, few have looked at the relationship between blood pressure levels and the later development of type 2 diabetes, Conen and colleagues explain in the European Heart Journal.
Finding a clear association between rising blood pressure and the onset of type 2 diabetes is "important," Conen said, because it suggests that women with increasing blood pressure should have their blood sugar levels monitored.
The Boston team's findings are based on a long-term study of more than 38,000 women who were free of diabetes and heart disease in 1993. The women were divided into four groups by blood pressure level: optimal, normal, high-normal, or hypertensive.
After roughly 10 years of follow-up, the rate of new diabetes diagnoses correlated with a risk in hypertension. In analyses accounting for the effects of smoking, drinking, body weight, family history of diabetes and other factors, women with hypertension were three times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes compared with women with optimal blood pressure. This was true regardless of a woman's weight.
The study also found that women whose blood pressure rose during the study but remained within the normal range had a 26-percent increased risk of type 2 diabetes compared with women whose blood pressure remained stable or fell. Women who progressed to definite hypertension during the study period had a 64-percent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
"This study," Conen commented, "highlights the fact that cardiovascular risk factors are interrelated and that they occur in clusters. Our study suggests that there is a common underlying pathway that increases the risk of developing hypertension and type 2 diabetes," such as inflammation or reduced elasticity of blood vessels -- a problem known as endothelial dysfunction.
SOURCE: European Heart Journal, October 2007.
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