Hypertension in obese type 2 diabetes patients is associated with increases in insulin resistance and IL-6 cytokine levels: potential targets for an efficient preventive intervention

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2014 Mar 28;11(4):3586-98. doi: 10.3390/ijerph110403586.

Abstract

Increased body weight as well as type 2 diabetes (T2D) are found to be associated with increased incidence of hypertension, although the mechanisms facilitating hypertension in T2D or nondiabetic individuals are not clear. Therefore, in this study we compared the levels of insulin resistance (IR:OGIS), plasma insulin (PI:RIA) levels, and pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6 and TNF-α: ELISA), being risk factors previously found to be associated with hypertension, in T2D patients showing increased body weight (obese and overweight, BMI ≥ 25 kg/m²) with hypertension (group A, N = 30), or without hypertension (group B, N = 30), and in nonobese (BMI < 25 kg/m²), normotensive controls (group C, N = 15). We found that OGIS index was the lowest (A: 267 ± 35.42 vs. B: 342.89 ± 32.0, p < 0.01) and PI levels were the highest (A: 31.05 ± 8.24 vs. B: 17.23 ± 3.23, p < 0.01) in group A. In addition, IL-6 levels were higher in group A (A: 15.46 ± 5.15 vs. B: 11.77 ± 6.09; p < 0.05) while there was no difference in TNF-α levels. Our results have shown that appearance of hypertension in T2D patients with increased body weight was dependent on further increase in IR which was associated with the rise in pro-inflammatory IL-6 cytokine. The results imply that lifestyle intervention aimed to decrease IR might be beneficial in reducing the risk for hypertension in those T2D individuals.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Biomarkers / blood
  • Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / blood*
  • Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / epidemiology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Hypertension / blood*
  • Hypertension / epidemiology
  • Hypertension / prevention & control
  • Insulin / blood
  • Insulin Resistance*
  • Interleukin-6 / blood*
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Obesity / blood*
  • Obesity / epidemiology
  • Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / blood

Substances

  • Biomarkers
  • IL6 protein, human
  • Insulin
  • Interleukin-6
  • Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha