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High Blood Pressure Triples Women’s Risk of Diabetes
A new study shows that women with high blood pressure have three times to risk of developing type 2 diabetes than women with optimal blood pressure. This results was after factoring out other contributors to diabetes such as obesity.
The study, published in the European Heart Journal, followed 38,000 female health professional for a period of more than 10 years. They were divided into four groups, optimal - below 120/70, normal - below 129/84, high normal - below 139/89, and high - above 140/90.
After adjusting for factors such as smoking, age, alcohol consumption, body mass, exercise, and family history, researchers found that 9.4% of women in the high group developed diabetes while 5.7% did in the high normal group, 2.9% in the normal group, and 1.4% in the optimal group.
Lead author, Dr. David Conen, a cardiologist and research fellow said, "We found that obesity was also a strong and independent risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes. However, statistical analyses showed that the relationship between blood pressure and the onset of type 2 diabetes was similar among women who were normal weight, overweight or obese. There was a threefold increased risk from the lowest to the highest BP category within all three weight categories. This analysis showed that the association between blood pressure and diabetes was not explained by weight alone."