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Measurements of insulin resistance in hypertension: where are we now?

Journal of Human Hypertension volume 21, pages 693–696 (2007)Cite this article

Metabolic abnormalities such as glucose intolerance and dyslipidaemia are common in patients with hypertension. These metabolic abnormalities are suggested to play a role in both the pathogenesis and the complications of hypertension in many patients. Insulin resistance has been proposed to be a key feature linked to hypertension-related metabolic disorders.1 In many studies, where hypertensive subjects were compared with normotensive ones, increased insulin responses to glucose challenge were consistently found.1 Indeed, Ferrannini et al.2 revealed previously that insulin-mediated glucose uptake was reduced by 40% in subjects with hypertension, and indicated that peripheral tissues (mainly muscle) and not the liver, seemed to be a major site of insulin resistance in hypertension.

Approximately 50% of hypertensive patients are insulin resistant and these subjects are at great risk of cardiovascular disease.3 Thus, hypertensive patients with insulin resistance represent a particular disease group and require special medical attention in daily practice. However, Mohteshamzadeh et al.4 have shown that insulin sensitivity in patients with hypertension was not easily predictable from simple clinical parameters, such as age, sex, body mass index and fasting biochemical values, in view of the substantial overlap in clinical markers between insulin-sensitive and insulin-resistant subjects. Unsurprisingly, there has been great pathophysiological interest on the topic (e.g., linking insulin sensitivity/resistance to non-esterified fatty acids,5 homocysteine,6 gene polymorphisms,7 etc.) and exploring the effects of treatment.8

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, Section of General Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan

    C-M Hwu

  2. Faculty of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University School of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan

    C-M Hwu

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Correspondence to C-M Hwu.

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Hwu, CM. Measurements of insulin resistance in hypertension: where are we now?. J Hum Hypertens 21, 693–696 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jhh.1002202

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