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High adiponectin levels lower risk for hypertension
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Adiponectin may be protective against incident hypertension, independent of body fat distribution, in adults without hypertension.
“Adiponectin, a protein released by the fat cells, has been shown to reduce blood pressure in mice, but its role in BP regulation in humans is unknown,” Wanpen Vongpatanasin, MD, professor of medicine and director of the hypertension section at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, told Endocrine Today. “However, none of these previous studies were conducted in ethnically diverse U.S. adult men and women.”
Vongpatanasin and colleagues evaluated data from the Dallas Heart Study on 1,233 adults (mean age, 40 years; 40% black; 56% women) to determine the relationship between adiponectin and incident hypertension. Follow-up was conducted for a median 7 years.
Thirty-two percent of participants developed hypertension through follow-up. Participants who developed hypertension were older, had higher systolic BP, diastolic BP, BMI, waist circumference, fasting plasma glucose, total cholesterol, triglycerides, visceral adipose tissue, subcutaneous fat tissue and liver fat compared with those who did not develop hypertension.
Median adiponectin was higher among participants who did not develop hypertension (7.7 µg/mL) compared with those who did (6.7 µg/mL; P < .05). An association was found between adiponectin levels and reduced risk for incident hypertension (RR = 0.81; 95% CI, 0.68-0.96), in the fully adjusted model.
“Our study is the first to show that high level of adiponectin was associated with lower risk of hypertension in the Dallas Heart Study over a follow-up of 7 years,” Vongpatanasin told Endocrine Today. “Since people with high adiponectin levels tended to have less fat in the abdomen area, which may be protective against hypertension, we performed analysis that accounts for fat mass and MRI and DXA scan. We found than even after accounting for lower total fat and visceral fat as measured by MRI and DXA scan, people with high levels of adiponectin still have 20% to 35% lower risk of hypertension compared to people with normal levels of adiponectin.” – by Amber Cox
For more information:
Wanpen Vongpatanasin, MD, can be reached at UT Southwestern Medical Center, 5909 Harry Hines Blvd, Dallas, TX 75235.
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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