Adiposity, waist-hip ratio and BMI linked to hypertension:JAHA
Obesity and hypertension are 2 of the main causes of noncommunicable diseases and mortality worldwide. It is well known that adiposity itself is a risk factor for hypertension, but how different measures of obesity influence blood pressure (BP) is less clear.
According to recent research findings published in Journal of the American Heart Association , genetically predicted adiposity, and especially genetically predicted WHR and BMI, have been potentially causally linked to BP and hypertension.
Different adiposity traits may be causally related to hypertension in different ways. By using genetic variants as randomly allocated proxies for studying the effect of modifying adiposity traits, the Mendelian randomization approach can be used to investigate this.
Thus, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the association of different measures of genetically mediated adiposity with different BP‐related traits, including hypertension prevalence and incidence, using an MR design.In this study, researchers used 4 different genetic risk scores (GRS; GRS‐BMI565, GRS‐WHR324, GRS‐VAT208, GRS‐BF81) including hundreds of single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with body mass index, waist‐to‐hip ratio, visceral adipose tissue, and body fat, respectively. These were applied as instrumental variables in Mendelian randomization analyses. Two Swedish urban‐based cohort studies, the Malmö Diet and Cancer, and the Malmö Preventive 795Projects were used to obtain genetic association estimates with blood pressure (BP).
Results reflected some important facts.
- In both the Malmö Preventive Projects and Malmö Diet and Cancer studies, except for that for body fat, all of the genetic risk scores were significantly associated with systolic BP and diastolic BP, but with different magnitudes.
- In particular, in both cohorts, each standard deviation increase in the genetic risk score made up by the 324 single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with waist‐to‐hip ratio was associated with doubling of the likelihood of hypertension prevalence at baseline.
- However, only the genetic risk score made up by the 565 SNPs associated with body mass index was significantly associated with hypertension incidence during 23.6±4.3 years of follow‐up in the Malmö Preventive Project.
"We support a causal link between genetically mediated adiposity, especially waist‐to‐hip ratio and body mass index, and BP traits including hypertension prevalence and, for the first time to our knowledge, hypertension incidence. The differences in magnitude between these associations might suggest different mechanisms by which different adiposity affects BP/hypertension and consequently may indicate that tailored interventions are needed to reduce cardiovascular risk."the team concluded.
For full article follow the link: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/JAHA.120.020405?af=R
Source: Journal of the American Heart Association
