Numerous studies have demonstrated that isolated systolic hypertension (ISH) has an important role in predicting cardiovascular risk and all-cause mortality in both young and elderly adults. Obesity is also a well-established and modifiable risk factor for hypertension.

A recent study suggests that the association of traditional obesity indicators with isolated systolic hypertension was more prominent than that of lipid-related obesity indicators. The study findings were published in the BMC Cardiovascular Disorders on March 21, 2022.

Although several studies have demonstrated that these novel lipid-related obesity indicators were positively associated with hypertension, there are no data on their association with ISH and whether they have an advantage over traditional indicators. Therefore, Dr Xing Zhen Liu and his team conducted a study and compared the association of body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), visceral adiposity index (VAI), lipid accumulation product index (LAP), and cardiometabolic index (CMI) with ISH.
In a cross-sectional study, the researchers included 106,248 adults who received routine health screening and did not have diastolic blood pressure ≥ 90 mmHg. They evaluated the associations between these indicators and ISH using multivariate regression. They obtained SBP, DBP, and heart rate (HR) 3 times on the right arm after at least 5 min of rest using an automatic BP monitor (HEM-1000, OMRON, Japan).
Key findings of the study:
Upon analysis, the researchers found that each standard deviation (SD) increase in traditional obesity indicators (especially WHR and WHtR) had significantly higher multivariate-adjusted odds ratios (ORs) than each SD increase in lipid-related obesity indicators.
They further found that the multivariate-adjusted ORs for ISH in the third (vs the first) tertile of traditional obesity indicators were also significantly higher than those of lipid-related indicators.
They noted that the traditional obesity indicators exhibited a higher area under the ROC curve for discriminating ISH than lipid-related obesity indicators.
The authors concluded, "Compared with lipid-related obesity indicators, traditional ones such as BMI, WC, WHR, and WHtR were more associated with isolated systolic hypertension among Chinese adults. Therefore, these simple and economical anthropometric indicators can still play a role in the weight monitoring among ISH individuals."
For further information:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12872-022-02564-2