The relationship between Hypertension and weight status in Iraqi population

: Most medical books and researches documented that increased body weight is a predisposing factor to hypertension , and there is recent work in this field as well. In this research , the relationships between hypertension and body weight with age were studied in Iraqi population . It is concluded that diastolic hypertension is separated from systolic and combined hypertension and increased body weight has little effect on increased blood pressure.


Introduction:
Persistent hypertension is one of the risk factors for strokes, heart attacks, heart failure and arterial aneurysm and is a leading cause of chronic renal failure.At severely high pressures, a person can expect to live no more than few years unless appropriately treated [1].
Over time, the number of collagen fibers in artery and arteriole walls increases making blood vessels stiffer, with reduced elasticity comes a smaller cross-sectional area in systole, and so a raised mean arterial blood pressure [1].Over 91% of adult hypertension has no clear cause and is therefore called essential or primary hypertension.often it is part of the metabolic syndrome in patients with insulin resistance.It occurs in combination with diabetes mellitus (type 2) , combined hyperlipidemia and central obesity [2].There are so many series of studies on hypertension ,the most widely quoted is Framingham heart study carried out in an American town :Framingham, Massachusetts and the other in Busselton , Western Australia .
In this paper, the relationships between hypertension and body weight represented by the body mass index were studied as a preliminary study to be extended in the next work according to the results.
15 males and 15 females were taken in each age group and their height and weight were measured and the body mass index of every subject was calculated according to the well-known formula BMI= Body weight (Kg /[height(m)] 2 .where Kg is the subject weight in Kilograms and m is the height in meters which is simple and widely used method for estimating body fat .

*University of Baghdad-College of Science for womenphysics Department
The definition of weight status were according to that published in 2000 by WHO and provided the following values [3] .A BMI less than 18.5 is under weight A BMI of 18.5-24.9 is normal weight A BMI of 25.0-29.9 is over weight A BMI of 30.0-39.9 is obese A BMI of 40.0-or higher is severely obese.
Their blood pressure were measured several times and mean was calculated then categorized as hypertensive according to those definitions by Chobanian (2003) that hypertension is considered to be present when a person's systolic blood pressure is consistently 140 mmHg or greater ,and/or their diastolic blood pressure is consistently 90mmHg or greater [4].

Results and Discussion:
As seen in table1and figure1 , 5.33% of males and 8% of females are under weight ,38.67% of males and 52% of females are normal weight , 37.33% of males and 33.3% of females were overweight and 18.67% of males and 6.67% of females were obese.

Fig. 1: Percentage of males and females according to their weight
It can be seen in table2 and figure2, that 66.67% of males and 76% of females were normotensive .and 12% of males and 10.67% of females suffered from systolic hypertension , and 6.67% of both males and females had Diastolic hypertension and 14.67%of males and 6.67% of females had both systolic and diastolic hypertension .It is interesting to find that normal weight subjects do not suffer from pure diastolic hypertension as seen in table and figure3 while there is significant number of subjects who have systolic or combined systolic and diastolic hypertension with abnormal body weight.From this it can be concluded that diastolic hypertension has different pathological process that is not related to age as well as body weight and should be categorized as a separate disease .Although many said that there is relation between age and hypertension this study showed that this disease occur in all age groups in the same prevalence .this counteracts with the theory of a atherosclerosis due to aging process as a strong predisposing factor to hypertension and there should be a pathological process behind not related to age .
It can be concluded that diastolic hypertension is a different disease from systolic and combined hypertension .And that there is a pathological process behind hypertension and above weight status as a cause of both conditions if presented together and above weight status preferably is not regarded as a predisposing factor.

obese with systolic and diastolic hypertension 6 8.00 1 1.33 Fig. 3: The relationship between weight status and blood pressure condition as a percentage in males and females
Table4: