Abstract:

Objective: In patients with and without a diagnosis of hypertension, we sought to ascertain if body mass index (BMI) and other demographic information affected dipper/non-dipper and pulse pressure/pulse pressure index. Method: Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) analysis of 56 patients with hypertension and 91 patients without hypertension were evaluated. We defined dipper as a drop in mean nocturnal blood pressure (BP) of >10% as compared with mean daytime values (non-dipper percentage <10%). The same calculations were made for the mean systolic and diastolic blood pressures. Pulse pressure (PP) and pulse pressure index were calculated using blood pressure measurements. Results: Systolic dipper was observed in 35.7% of male patients and 25% of female patients in the hypertension group (group 1), and there was no statistically significant difference between them (p>0.05). Diastolic dipper was observed in 46.4% of male patients and 39.3% of female patients in the hypertension group, and there was no statistically significant difference between them (p>0.05). In examination cases (group 2), Although the incidence of systolic dipper and diastolic dipper in male subjects (46.5% and 60.5%, respectively) was higher than in female subjects (27.1% and 39.6%, respectively), this difference was close to significance, but not statistically significant (p>0.05). There was no statistically significant difference between the mean age and BMI of systolic dipper and non-dipper cases (p>0.05). Besides, the mean age of the diastolic non-dipper cases was statistically significantly higher than the diastolic dipper cases (p:0.048), and the mean BMI of the diastolic non-dipper cases was statistically significantly higher than the diastolic dipper cases (p:0.034). Conclusion: It may be beneficial to include the mean pulse pressure/pulse pressure index in the evaluation of general, awake and asleep pulse pressure while evaluating the ABPM result.

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