Conversion of IGT to type 2 diabetes mellitus is associated with incident cases of hypertension: a post-hoc analysis of the STOP-NIDDM trial
Journal of Hypertension, 06/21/2012

Hanefeld M et al. – A significant relationship was found between the development of type 2 diabetes and hypertension in patients with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), and treatment with acarbose, which primarily improved postprandial hyperglycaemia, reduced the incidence of hypertension as well as diabetes. This suggests that the two entities shared ‘common soil’.

• To clarify these issues the authors analysed data from the Stop non insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (STOP–NIDDM) trial – a prospective interventional study for the prevention of type 2 diabetes in people with prediabetes using the alpha–glucosidase inhibitor acarbose.
• Hypertension was already present at study entry in 702 (51.3%) of 1368 patients who were eligible for intention–to–treat analysis.
• A total of 96 out of the 666 normotensive individuals at baseline developed hypertension during the 3.3–year follow–up.

• The strongest risk factors for time to development of hypertension were abdominal obesity at baseline [hazard ratio 1.91, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.19–3.05, P<0.01] and worsening of glucose tolerance (hazard ratio 1.54, 95% CI 1.02–2.32, P<0.05), whereas acarbose treatment reduced the risk of hypertension (hazard ratio 0.59, 95% CI 0.39–0.90, P<0.05).