Se Young Jung1,2, Yeon Hoon Jang2, Woo Kyung Bae1,3, Jong Soo Han1,2,3
1 Department of Family Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Korea
2 Department of Digital Healthcare, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Korea
3 Health Promotion Center, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Korea
Background: Previous studies revealed weight gain is an
independent risk factor for hypertension. Hypertension
in late middle age increases the risks of dementia and
cardiovascular diseases. We aimed to analyze the differ-
ence in the risk of hypertension in the late middle age
according to the change of body mass index (BMI) using
nationwide cohort data of South Korea.
Methods: We used 64,136 individuals from National Health
Insurance Service-Health Screening Cohort in
South Korea. The primary endpoint is newly diagnosed
hypertension after observation start date, which was
defined as the date of first examination after 50. BMI
changes were measured between two consecutive health
examinations before and after 50. Cox proportional hazard
regression analysis was performed to evaluate the
association between the change of BMI and the risk of
hypertension.
Results: During the mean follow-up period of 3.4¡¾1.9 years,
8,676 individuals were diagnosed with hypertension.
Both normal-to-obese group and obese-to-obese group had
19% higher risk for hypertension, and obese-to
normal group had 10% higher risk for hypertension in late
middle age, compared to normal-to-normal group.
Conclusions: We confirmed becoming obese and
maintaining obese increase the risk of hypertension in
late middle age. Thus, clinicians need to assess obese
patients regularly for the possibility of new onset hyper-
tension and take preventive measure to reduce the risk by
losing weights before late middle age.
Korean J Health Promot 2022;22(4):175-182
Keywords: Hypertension, Body mass index, Incidence rate |