The Predictive Value of Zerum Lipids and Glucose in New Onset Hypertension in Middle Aged Healthy Adults

Background: Dyslipidemia and diabetes are well established risk factors for cardiovascular disease, the relation between these entities and new onset hypertension is less clear.

The aim of this retrospective study is to find out whether such a relation exists in middle aged healthy adults.

Methods: We investigated 26694 self-referred men and women who were annually screened in a tertiary medical center. After excluding patients with known cardiovascular disease, smoking history, abnormal lipids and glucose levels, 9267 patients remained for final analysis. All of them were followed more than once, with mean follow up of 6.8±4.3 years. Cox regression multi-variate analysis was done to assess the predictive value of blood lipid and glucose levels; the primary end-point of the study was new onset hypertension.

Results: Mean age of the study population was 46±9 years and 70% were men. 1488 (16 %) subjects developed hypertension during the follow up period.

Multivariable cox regression model, adjusted for age, gender, impaired fasting glucose, HDL and LDL, showed that in this population triglycerides are a significant positive predictor of new onset of hypertension (HR=1.17, p=0.00005), mainly in women (HR ), while HDL had a significant negative predictive value (HR=0.89, p=0.017). LDL failed to predict the main outcome. Glucose had a significant positive predictive value in both sexes (HR=1.135, p=0.000001)

Conclusions: In normotensive adults free of any established cardiovascular disease or risk factors, triglycerides, HDL and glucose levels, within the whole range of normal and abnormal levels, could predict new onset of hypertension during 7 years of follow-up.

These results suggest that early control of lipid and glucose values may have anti-hypertensive effects.