RELATION BETWEEN INSULINEMIA AND LIPOPROTEIN COMPOSITION IN MEN WITH PRIMARY ARTERIAL-HYPERTENSION WITH AND WITHOUT HYPERTRIGLYCERIDEMIA

The purpose of the study was to evaluate a relationship between HDL, t riglyceride levels and insulinaemia in primary arterial hypertension. The study population consisted of 60 men aged 32-68 years (mean age 50 .87 years, s.d. 8.4) with hypertension duration of 11.1 years (s.d. 6. 4 years) who were compared with 60 normotensives matched for sex, age and BMI. We examined blood pressure, plasma lipoprotein content, sum o f glucose and sum of insulinaemia (sum ins) during OGTT (oral glucose tolerance test). OGTT revealed insulin secretion almost twice as high in hypertensives (P< 0.001 sum ins 11002 mu U min/ml, s.d. 4846) than in normotensives (sum ins 6662 mu U min/ml, s.d. 3099). Comparison of concentration of selected VLDL components shows that hypertensives wer e characterised by markedly higher concentration of triglycerides (1.4 5 mmol/L, s.d. 0.87 in hypertensives and 1.04 mmol/L s.d. 0.54 in norm otensives), free and esterified cholesterol and protein, including apo lipoprotein B than normotensives. It was also found that hypertensives had higher levels of apo CIII0 and lower levels of CIII1 VLDL than no rmotensives. Hypertensive patients showed also a higher frequency of a po E2 isoforms (three-fold) and apo E4 isoforms (two-fold) than health y subjects. No changes were detected in the composition of LDL and HDL between the groups. Analysing the discriminating ability of biochemic al parameters chosen in a step-wise manner it was found that sum ins a nd HDL, protein and cholesterol concentrations were the factors most p owerfully differentiating men with hypertension from healthy subjects. We found that in normotriglyceridaemic men with HT sum ins correlated positively only with the concentration of apoB in VLDL fraction, wher eas in patients with hypertension and hypertriglyceridaemia there was a strong negative relation between sum ins and HDL cholesterol level.