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Gender differences in ambulatory blood pressure monitoring profile in obese, overweight and normal subjects

Journal of Human Hypertension volume 21, pages 128–134 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

The incidence of obesity has increased enormously in the past several decades, and has been described as a modern epidemic. Obesity is a major factor contributing to hypertension. To the best of our knowledge, no study of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) comparing men with women in relation to body mass indexes (BMI) has been performed. From December 2002 to May 2006, we performed 24-h ABPM in 5950 subjects (3102 men and 2848 women), with a wide range of BMI (range 15.9–53.2 kg/m2). We defined obese subjects as those with BMI⩾30.0 kg/m2, overweight subjects as those with BMI>25.0 and <30.0 kg/m2, and normal subjects as those with BMI⩽25.0 kg/m2. Data on 989 subjects (501 men and 488 women) aged from ⩾18 to ⩽69 years without antihypertensive treatment, atrial fibrillation or diabetes were included for analysis. We consistently found that obese men had the expected increased heart rate compared to normal and overweight men, whereas women (normal, overweight and obese) had similar HRs. In addition, normal and obese women had similar diastolic blood pressures (BP), as opposed to obese men, who had raised diastolic BP. These results may indicate that different pathogenetic mechanisms may be involved in the relationship between obesity and hypertension in men and women.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Professor Yossi Hillel, The Robert H Smith Institute of Plant Science and Genetics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem for help in statistical analysis of data; and Tamy Aflalo, Natalie Berkovitch and Olga Kolomier, technicians of ‘Meuhedet’ Sick Fund for help in data collection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nephrology and Hypertension, Kaplan Medical Center, Rehovot, Israel

    A Kagan & J Rapoport

  2. Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

    A Kagan & J Rapoport

  3. Meuhedet' Sick Fund, Ashdod, Israel

    H Faibel

  4. The Robert H Smith Institute of Plant Science and Genetics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

    G Ben-Arie & Z Granevitze

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  1. A Kagan
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  2. H Faibel
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  3. G Ben-Arie
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  4. Z Granevitze
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  5. J Rapoport
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Correspondence to A Kagan.

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Kagan, A., Faibel, H., Ben-Arie, G. et al. Gender differences in ambulatory blood pressure monitoring profile in obese, overweight and normal subjects. J Hum Hypertens 21, 128–134 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jhh.1002118

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