FRIDAY, Oct. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Women with high blood pressure or whose blood pressure increases over time have a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to study findings published online Oct. 9 in the European Heart Journal.
David Conen, M.D., and colleagues from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, studied 38,172 women free of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The women were classified into four categories based on their blood pressure at the start of the study and further classified upon progression to a higher blood pressure category over a 48-month follow-up period.
During 10.2 years of follow-up, the researchers found that 1,672 women developed type 2 diabetes. The multivariable adjusted hazard ratios for diabetes increased with increasing blood pressure category, ranging from 0.66-2.03. Compared with women with no blood pressure progression, women whose blood pressure increased but remained normal had an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.26 and those who became hypertensive had a hazard ratio of 1.64.
"Baseline blood pressure and blood pressure progression are strong and independent predictors of incident type 2 diabetes among initially healthy women," Conen and colleagues conclude.
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