Relationship Between Serum Uric Acid and Incident Hypertension in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the relationship between high baseline serum uric acid (SUA) and incident hypertension in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D).

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the ability of baseline SUA to predict the incidence of hypertension in non-hypertensive patients with T2D.

METHODS: The association between SUA and mean 20-year incidence of hypertension was examined in 1,666 non-hypertensive patients with T2D from Isfahan Endocrine and Metabolism Research Center outpatient clinics, Iran. The primary outcome was incident hypertension defined as systolic blood pressure (BP) of 140 mmHg or higher and/or diastolic BP 90 mmHg or higher and/or use of antihypertensive medications. The mean (standard error (SE)) age of participants was 49.4 years (0.25 years) with a mean (SE) duration of diabetes of 6.1 years (0.15 years) at initial registration. We used multiple logistic regression to estimate the odds ratio (OR) for the incidence of hypertension across quartiles of SUA, and plotted a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve to assess discrimination.

RESULTS: The highest quartile of SUA was not associated with hypertension compared with the lowest quartile in multivariable adjusted models (OR: 1.22, 95% CI: 0.87, 1.73). The area under the ROC curve for SUA was 51.7% (95% CI: 48.9, 54.5).

CONCLUSIONS: High initial SUA levels are not a predictor of incident hypertension in an Iranian T2D population.