People with high blood pressure sixty per cent more likely to develop diabetes

People with high blood pressure have an almost 60 per cent greater chance of developing diabetes, according to a new global study.

Study author, Professor Kazem Rahimi, deputy director of the George Institute for Global Health UK, said the findings are “potentially a game changer in the understanding and treatment of diabetes”.

He claims that in contrast to what he calls earlier conflicting and inconclusive reports, this study now reliably shows the connection between high blood pressure and diabetes.

Prof Rahimi added: “Diabetes affects more than 400 million people worldwide, and we know that diabetics are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease such as heart attacks, stroke and heart failure.

“High blood pressure affects even more people. Confirming this connection reliably provides new hope for those people and new avenues for research.

“We can’t say for certain that one causes the other, but this study helps to connect the dots, showing that if you have high blood pressure there is a significantly greater chance of developing diabetes.”

He hopes the research will help motivate patients and doctors to achieve lower blood pressure.

The study looked at the health records of 4.1m adults in the UK who were initially free of diabetes and cardiovascular disease and found:

• For every 20 mm mercury increase on the measurement gauge, in systolic blood pressure there was a 58 per cent higher risk of developing diabetes.

• For every 10 mm mercury increase in systolic blood pressure there was a 52 per cent higher risk of developing diabetes

• Higher blood pressure was also associated with a higher risk of new onset diabetes in a wide variety of groups of individuals, including men and women, people of young (30-50), middle (51-70) and old age (71-90) as well as normal weight, overweight and obese individuals

• The relative association between blood pressure and diabetes decreased as body mass index (BMI) and age increased but absolute effects were higher in the elderly and overweight.

The study was conducted by The George Institute for Global Health, with support from the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford, the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre and NIHR Career Development Fellowship.

The paper ‘Usual blood pressure and risk of new onset diabetes: evidence from 4.1 million adults and a meta-analysis of prospective studies’, can be found in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology at http://content.onlinejacc.org/journal.aspx