BLOOD-PRESSURE TRENDS, PLASMA-INSULIN LEVELS AND RISK-FACTORS IN RURAL AND URBAN ELDERLY POPULATIONS OF NORTH-INDIA

Objective To compare the prevalence of hypertension and its risk facto rs with age-specific blood pressures in rural and urban subjects. Desi gn and setting A cross-sectional survey of two randomly selected villa ges and 20 randomly selected streets in Moradabad, north India. Subjec ts and methods The subjects were 255 rural people (140 men, 115 women) and 811 urban people (172 men, 139 women) aged 60-84 years. The surve y methods were questionnaires, blood pressure and anthropometric measu rements and electrocardiography. Results The mean +/- SD blood pressur es, both systolic (137.7 +/- 13 versus 131.2 +/- 12 mmHg) and diastoli c (89.8 +/- 41 versus 85.8 +/- 9 mmHg) were significantly higher in ur ban men than they were in rural men. Similar differences between systo lic (135.6 +/- 11 versus 129.2 +/- 10 mmHg) and diastolic (90 +/- 10 v ersus 87.6 +/- 9 mmHg) blood pressures were found among urban and rura l women, respectively. A significant correlation between systolic bloo d pressures and increasing age was observed both for rural and for urb an subjects of both sexes, The overall prevalences of hypertension bas ed on World Health Organization criteria (17.6 versus 5.0%) and Joint National Committee fifth report criteria (34.0 versus 10.1%) were sign ificantly higher among urban than they were among rural subjects, Mult ivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that age, body mass ind ex, central obesity, glucose intolerance, 2 h plasma insulin and trigl yceride level were associated independently with hypertension. Conclus ions The findings indicate that urban subjects had higher blood pressu res than did rural subjects and that age, body mass index, central obe sity and 2 h plasma insulin levels were significant risk factors for h ypertension in an elderly population. (C) Rapid Science Publishers ISS N 0954-6928.