An Evaluation of Glucose Tolerance in Essential Hypertension

It is thought that insulin resistance syndrome leads to impaired glucose tolerance, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and impaired fibrinolytic activity. 1 Insulin sensitivity is lower in patients with essential hypertension when compared with normotensive patients.2 The insulinemic response to a glucose load is greater among patients with essential hypertension.An impaired glucose uptake in cells accompanies this situation.3 Also, according to the 2002 reports of the American Diabetes Association (ADA), essential hypertension is accepted as the major risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus.4 We aimed to determine the impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes prevalence in patients with essential hypertension and to compare the developed microvascular complications of these groups.We enrolled 338 subjets in this study from 1998-2002.Blood pressure (BP) was measured two times in the seated position after about 10 minutes of rest with a standard manual mercury sphygmomanometer (for nonobese subjects) and an 18 × 42 cm extra large cuff (for obese subjects).The recorded pressure of the two measurements was averaged.Subjects with a systolic and diastolic BP equal to or exceeding 140/90 mmHg, and those who had used BP lowering medications were considered to have hypertension (Table 1).Secondary causes of hypertension in all patients were excluded, as far as possible, bythe findings of the following clinical examinations: serum urea, creatinine, electrolytes, thyroidstimulating hormone (TSH) and free T4 concentrations, urinary metanephrine, and an over- An Evaluation of Glucose Tolerance in Essential Hypertension