Circulating Adipokine Levels in Non-diabetic Subjects with High Normal Blood Pressure.

Objective This study aimed to evaluate the levels of the adipokines, resistin and adiponectin in normotensive and high normal blood pressure patients. Methods Circulating levels of the adipokines, resistin and adiponectin were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA; R'D Systems, Minneapolis) in 20 high normal blood pressure patients and in 20 age-matched normotensive non-diabetic subjects. Statistical analysis was performed with analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results The control group showed non-significantly decreased levels of resistin when compared with patients with high normal blood pressure [systolic 130-139 mmHg; diastolic 85-89 mmHg] (12.25 vs 14.38 pg/mL, p = 0.40). There were significantly higher levels of adiponectin in the control group when compared with high normal blood pressure patients (11.3 vs 7.51 μg/mL, p = 0.028). Conclusions High normal blood pressure patients have increased levels of resistin and lower values of adiponectin when compared with age-matched non-diabetic normotensive subjects. This may explain why those patients showed more progression to hypertension, atherosclerosis and cardiovascular risk than normotensive subjects.