The Association Between Obesity and Visit-to-Visit Variability in Systolic Blood Pressure: A Prospective Study

With the prevalence of obesity and all accompanying health risks, both prevention and health education, as well as identifying predictors for the development of obesity-related diseases are primary. The pathophysiological relationship between obesity and visit-to-visit variability in systolic blood pressure (SBPV) has not been completely resolved. To investigate the association between obesity and SBPV in hypertensive patients. The prospective study comprised three visits was performed at the hypertension outpatient clinic during the follow up period of 22-months between March 2014 and January 2016. This study included 300 randomly selected hypertensive patients (average 67.76±9.84 years), who were divided in groups of obese/non-obese examinees. SBPV was defined as the standard deviation (SD) from three values of SBP. The values of SBP and SBP-SD were significantly higher in the group of obese hypertensive patients than in the group of non-obese patients (127.06±8.30 vs. 120.37±7.75; 11.29±5.67 vs. 7.37±3.94 mmHg; p<0.01). The highest SBPV was recorded in the 4th quartile in obese patients (43.13±7.50 mmHg). SBPV was strongly correlated with BMI and Waist cirumferences (WC) (ρo=0.425, ρo=0.356, p<0.01). During 22-months follow up there was a significant decrease of SBPV for 8.2 mmHg, BP for 31/5 mmHg, BMI for 3.8 kg/m2, WC for 10 cm and body weight for 8.24 kg. During 22-months follow-up, reduction of body weight was associated with reduction of blood pressure variability in hypertensive patients. Persistently decrease both body weight and long term visit-to-visit variability may explain lower cardiovascular risk in obese-related disease.