Publication:

Interleukin-6 in obese type II diabetes with hypertension

Background Type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and obesity are found to be associated with increased incidence of hypertension, although the mechanisms facilitating hypertension in T2DM or nondiabetic individuals are not clear.

Methods We compared the levels of fasting plasma glucose, HbA1c, lipid subfractions and inflammatory cytokine interleukin 6 (IL-6), being risk factors previously found to be associated with hypertension, in T2DM patients showing increased body weight (obese and overweight with body mass index, BMI ≥25 kg/m2) with hypertension (group A, n=30), or without hypertension (group B, n=30), and in non-obese (BMI <25 kg/m2), normotensive controls (group C, n=40).

Results BMI, HbA1c, fasting plasma glucose, total cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol and LDL cholesterol were found to be significantly higher in group A, B Vs C (p <0.05). Also, IL-6 levels were significantly higher both in group A and B compared to group C. The highest level of IL-6 was found in group A, being significantly higher than in group B (A: 14.34 ± 4.98 pg/ml; B: 10.66 ± 1.16 pg/ml; C: 7.41 ± 0.54 pg/ml, A vs. B p<0.001; A, B vs. C p<0.001).

Conclusions Our results have shown that appearance of hypertension in T2DM patients with increased body weight was dependent on rise in inflammatory marker IL-6 cytokine.