Importance of overweight in studies of left ventricular hypertrophy and diastolic function in mild systemic hypertension

The relations of Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Relative Weight values and blood pressure (BP) to minimal forearm vascular resistance, ventricular septal and posterior wall thickness, left ventricular (LV) mass index and cardiac diastolic function were assessed in 31 men, 37 +/- 2 (mean +/- standard error of the mean) years of age. Eighteen patients with untreated mild hypertension were compared with 13 normotensive control subjects of similar age and weight. The hypertensives had higher clinic (137 +/- 3/96 +/- 2 vs 121 +/- 4/81 +/- 3 mm Hg, p less than 0.001/less than 0.001) and home (p less than 0.001) BP. Despite higher BP, the hypertensives did not have significantly greater values than normotensives, respectively, for minimal forearm vascular resistance (2.20 +/- 0.12 vs 2.04 +/- 0.11 U), ventricular septal (9.9 +/- 0.5 vs 10.2 +/- 0.3 mm) and posterior wall thickness (10.2 +/- 0.4 vs 10.0 +/- 0.3 mm) or LV mass index (106 +/- 6 vs 107 +/- 6 g/m2). Furthermore, diastolic peak filling rate, an index of LV diastolic function, was virtually identical in the 2 groups (2.71 +/- 0.14 vs 2.69 +/- 0.07 liters/s, difference not significant). Correlates of peak filling rate included relative weight (r = -0.62, p less than 0.001), posterior wall thickness (r = -0.51, p less than 0.01) and age (r = -0.45, p less than 0.05). Relative weight also correlated significantly with posterior wall (r = 0.59, p less than 0.005), ventricular septal (r = 0.47, p less than 0.005) and LV mass index (r = 0.38, p less than 0.05).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)