Impact of 3-year changes in fasting insulin and insulin resistance indices on incident hypertension: Tehran lipid and glucose study

Abstract

Abstract Background To examine the association between changes in fasting insulin, homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), and insulin-glucose ratio (IGR) levels, over approximately 3 years with incident hypertension. Methods A total of 2814 Iranian participants (1123 men) without hypertension and known diabetes at baseline and the first examination were followed for a median of 6.32 years. The associations between quartiles of changes in fasting insulin and IR indices with incident hypertension were assessed using multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression analyses with first quartile as reference. The models were adjusted for baseline values of insulin or each IR index, and age, sex, smoking, physical activity, educational levels, marital status, history of cardiovascular diseases, baseline levels of systolic and diastolic blood pressures, estimated glomerular filtration rate, triglycerides, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, fasting plasma glucose (only for insulin change) and both body mass index (BMI) per se, and its change. Akaike’s information criteria (AIC) was applied as indicator for goodness of fit of each predictive model. The discrimination ability of models was calculated using the Harrell’s C statistic. Results During the study, 594 incident cases of hypertension (253 men) were identified. The 4th quartile of changes in insulin, HOMA-IR, and IGR showed hazard ratios (95% confidence interval) of 1.31 (1.01–1.69), 1.18 (0.92–1.52), and 1.53 (1.18–1.98) for hypertension, respectively, in fully-adjusted models. Changes in fasting insulin levels and IR indices showed significant increasing trends for incident hypertension, moving from 1st to 4th quartiles (all P-values < 0.05). Focusing on model fitness, no superiority was found between changes in fasting insulin, HOMA-IR, and IGR to predict incident hypertension. The discriminatory powers of changes in fasting insulin and IR indices as assessed by C index were similar (i.e. about 80%). Conclusion Changes in fasting insulin and IR indices were significantly associated with developing hypertension among normotensive population even after considering BMI changes.