Insulin and hypertension in the NHLBI family heart study

Florian Kronenberg, Stephen S. Rich, Phyliss Sholinsky, Donna K. Arnett, Michael E. Province, Richard H. Myers, John H. Eckfeldt, Roger R. Williams, Steven C. Hunt

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

The association between insulin and hypertension remains equivocal. We therefore investigated insulin levels in 3037 normotensive and 1067 hypertensive subjects from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Family Heart Study (FHS) by two different approaches. First, we compared insulin levels between normotensive and 275 untreated hypertensive subjects. Insulin levels unadjusted as well as adjusted for age, sex, and center were significantly higher in hypertensives. After adjustment for body mass index (BMI), insulin remained significantly higher only in the diastolic hypertensive group (mean ± SD 77.0 ± 36.7 pmol/L, P < .01) but not in the isolated systolic hypertensive group (67.0 ± 38.2 pmol/L) when compared to normotensives (63.2 ± 29.1 pmol/L). A sibpair analysis was then used that compared the intra-sibpair differences in insulin concentrations to the intra-sibpair differences in blood pressure (BP) levels. This approach was intended to control for the effects of genetic and residual shared environmental variance upon insulin levels. The intra-sibpair difference in insulin concentrations between concordant (diastolic and systolic ΔBP < 5 mm Hg) and discordant sibpairs (diastolic and systolic ΔBP > 15 and > 20 mm Hg, respectively) was no longer significantly different when adjusted for BMI (2.7 v 5.9 pmol/L for diastolic and -1.7 v -1.8 pmol/L for systolic BP). Even the random selection of one sibpair from each of the 326 families independently of insulin and BP levels did not result in a significant correlation between the intra-sibpair differences in insulin and BP. Using an insulin resistance index instead of insulin did not change our findings. Our investigation in the FHS sample of families suggests that there is only a small, if any, influence of insulin levels on BP after adjustment for obesity-related sources of variation. (C) 2000 American Journal of Hypertension, Ltd.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)240-250
Number of pages11
JournalAmerican Journal of Hypertension
Volume13
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2000

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
F. Kronenberg is supported by the “Austrian Programme for Advanced Research and Technology” (APART) of the Austrian Academy of Science and by the “Hans und Blanca Moser Stiftung.” This study was supported by cooperative agreements from NHLBI: UO1-HL-56563, -56564, -56565, -56566, -56567, -56568, and -56569.

Funding

F. Kronenberg is supported by the “Austrian Programme for Advanced Research and Technology” (APART) of the Austrian Academy of Science and by the “Hans und Blanca Moser Stiftung.” This study was supported by cooperative agreements from NHLBI: UO1-HL-56563, -56564, -56565, -56566, -56567, -56568, and -56569.

FundersFunder number
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)-56569, U01HL056564, UO1-HL-56563
Australian Academy of Science

    Keywords

    • Body mass index
    • Hypertension
    • Insulin
    • Obesity
    • Sibpair study

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Internal Medicine

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