Body mass index and blood pressure in adult type 2 diabetic patients in Taiwan

Background: The correlation between body mass index (BMI)/obesity and blood pressure/hypertension has not been confirmed in diabetic patients. This study analyzed the association in Taiwanese adult patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods and Results: The National Health Insurance data of 89,857 adult patients (41,398 men and 48,459 women; aged ?18 years with mean±SD of 62.2±11.3 years) interviewed by questionnaire were analyzed, taking into account the potential confounding of age, sex, diabetic duration, smoking and parental hypertension. Prevalence of obesity (BMI ?25 kg/m 2) was 39.3% and 41.7% in the diabetic men and women, respectively; and hypertension was 54.5% in both sexes. Hypertension increased significantly with increasing age and BMI. The adjusted odds ratio (OR) for hypertension for every 1 kg/m 2 increment of BMI was 1.16 (1.15-1.17) and 1.13 (1.12-1.14) for men and women, respectively. The correlation between BMI and hypertension/blood pressure extended throughout BMI levels to the nonobese range. For men, adjusted OR for BMI <18.5, 18.5-22.9, 23.0-24.9, 25.0-29.9 and ?30.0 kg/m 2 were 1.00, 1.23 (1.07-1.41), 1.78 (1.55-2.05), 3.06 (2.66-3.53) and 6.59 (5.56-7.82), respectively; and were 1.00, 1.09 (0.97-1.22), 1.49 (1.32-1.68), 2.32 (2.06-2.60), 4.40 (3.84-5.05), respectively, for women. For every lunit BMI increase in patients without a hypertension history, the systolic and diastolic blood pressures significantly increased by 0.618 and 0.447 mmHg for men; and by 0.637 and 0.462 mmHg, respectively, for women. Conclusions: BMI/obesity is significantly linked to blood pressure/hypertension throughout the range of BMI in diabetic patients in either sex regardless of a previous hypertension history.