Association of hypertension with microalbuminuria and lipid profile in the local population of Patan.

There is increasing prevalence of hypertension worldwide. Hypertension is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease and renal disease which are the leading cause of death in the world. It is, therefore, very important to prevent progression of hypertension into these fatal diseases through appropriate treatment and monitoring. Microalbuminuria and dyslipidemia has been regarded as a predictor for cardiovascular and renal dysfunction in hypertension. In this study, we have included 130 hypertensive and 100 normotensive individuals of age > or = 25 years. Patients with a history of urinary tract infection, hematuria, renal failure, women with menstruation at the time of sample collection were excluded from this study. Measurements of anthropometric parameters; blood parameters like lipid profile, fasting blood sugar (FBS), creatinine after 8 hrs fasting and urine parameters like microalbumin and creatinine were done. The prevalence of microalbuminuria and macroalbuminuria is 17.7% and 3.1% respectively in hypertensive patients. Also, there was 9% prevalence of microalbuminuria in normotensive people. There was a significant association of hypertension with microalbuminuria and dyslipidemia, triglyceride, low density lipoprotein, high density lipoprotein, microalbumin creatinine ratio (MCR), body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and waist hip ratio (WHR) were significantly higher in hypertensive than in normotensive persons. These higher lipid levels, WC and MCR in hypertensive patient are established risk factors for progressing into diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Hence, monitoring of these parameters would be beneficial for hypertensive patients in preventing the disease progression in this population.