Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Insulin resistance has been found to be higher in hypertensive subjects. Whether this is also true in prehypertension is controversial. We examined both insulin resistance and lipidemic profile in subjects with prehypertension.

Methods: 214 outpatients (119 men and 97 women) of Greek origin were divided into two groups: i) prehypertensive and ii) control group. These groups were tested for insulin resistance using the HOMA-index, as well as lipids values. All participants were matched for age and BMI. Prehypertension is defined as BP=120–139/80–89 mmHg and normal BP<120/80 mmHg. Ambulatory blood pressure was measured in both groups. Categorical and numeric values were analyzed with χ² and t-test or Mann–Whitney U-test were appropriate.

Results: HOMA-index was higher in the prehypertensive versus the control group (P=0.013), and similar results were shown for the measurement of insulin (P=0.001). Additionally, a statistically significant difference was found between the control versus the prehypertensive group for cholesterol (P=0.017) and triglycerides (P=0.003). No significant differences were found for all the other parameters.

Conclusions: Our study revealed a significantly higher Insulin resistance, total cholesterol and triglyceride the prehypertensives. These are parameters of the metabolic syndrome, which is associated with the high cardiovascular risk. Thus, measuring these factors might be useful people with non-optimal values of BP.