High blood pressure triples diabetes risk in women
The rapid spread of diabetes is three times more likely to strike a woman with high blood pressure than one whose blood pressure is under control, according to a newly published report in the European Heart Journal.
Researchers found that the link between high blood pressure, also called hypertension, and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes was independent and not directly influenced by other factors that are known to trigger both diabetes and cardiovascular disease in general.
Researchers studying 38,000 female health professionals over a 10 year period in the US concluded that the risk of diabetes was three times higher for women with high blood pressure by factoring in the effects of age, smoking, alcohol consumption, body mass index, exercise, and family diabetes history.
The link between high blood pressure and higher diabetes risk may be the result of a disruption of the body’s normal biochemical processes which are carried out by cells that line the inner surfaces of blood vessels.