The association between plasma adiponectin level and hypertension

Abstract

Background - Lower plasma adiponectin levels are related to dyslipidaemia and components of the metabolic syndrome. It is not clear whether adiponectin levels are independently related to hypertension. Also, previous studies that examined the putative adiponectin-hypertension association studied only men. We examined the relationship between plasma adiponectin and hypertension after controlling for important confounding factors and also performed separate analyses among men and women. Methods - Cross-sectional study of 664 participants (mean age: 52.5 years, 50.3% men). Main outcome-of-interest was presence of hypertension (systolic blood pressure (BP) > 140 mmHg, diastolic ≥ 90 mmHg, or combination of self-reported hypertension diagnosis and antihypertensive medication use). Results - Lower plasma adiponectin levels were found to be positively associated with hypertension. Multivariable odds ratio (OR) (95% confidence intervals [CI]) comparing gender-specific tertile I of plasma adiponectin to tertile 3 (referent) was 3.40 (2.04-5.68), P-trend < 0.0001. This association was consistently present in separate analyses among men (P-trend < 0.0001) and women (P-trend = 0.01). Conclusions - These data provide new evidence clarifying the putative relation between plasma adiponectin and hypertension, suggesting that this association is independent of traditional cardiovascular factors, including dyslipidaemia and renal function and present in both men and women.