Five-year weight changes associate with blood pressure alterations independent of changes in serum insulin

OBJECTIVE:In overweight-related hypertension, the effect of weight changes on blood pressure (BP) is believed to be mediated by insulin. To test this hypothesis, we studied 5-year changes in weight, BP, and insulin in a general population of Danish adults (n = 3443; mean age 45.7 ± 7.6 years). METHODS:We assessed the glucose–insulin metabolism by a standard oral glucose tolerance test. We divided the antihypertensive and antidiabetic medication-free participants into three groupsweight loss (n = 515), weight stable (n = 1778), and weight gain (n = 1150). RESULTS:Losing on average 6.5 kg body weight, the weight loss group experienced a 28.2% reduction [(95% confidence interval [CI] −31 to −25); P