The correlation of anxiety, dyslipidemia and oxidative stress in prehypertensive and hypertensive patients

Abstract

Studies have evaluated that high blood pressure kills nine million people annually. Psychological factors can be considered as a primary threat to the increase of hypertension. It may lead to cardiovascular disease, stroke and kidney disease. The current work was conducted to analyze the disparity of anxiety, dyslipidemia and oxidative stress in pre-hypertensive and hyperten-sive subjects. This was a cross-sectional study conducted among 180 subjects. Based on the Joint National Committee 8 Criteria, participants were divided into hypertensive patients (n=60) and pre-hypertensive patients (n=63). Fifty-seven healthy subjects with normal blood pressure were served as the control group. Anthropometric measurements and blood pressure were mea-sured using the standard procedure. The biochemical parameters for mea-suring oxidative stress, blood glucose levels, and lipid profile were estimated. Anxiety level was assessed with the State-trait anxiety inventory (STAI) ques-tionnaire. It is observed that the serum Malondialdehyde (MDA) levels (nmol/ml) were significantly higher in pre-hypertensive (3.74±0.33) and hypertensive (4.7±0.38) compared to normotensive subjects (3.05±0.38). The Superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity (U/ml) was higher in subjects with normal blood pressure (12.67±2.31) than pre-hypertensive (11.16±2.43) and hypertensive subjects (8.98±2.32). The MDA had a significant positive correlation, and SOD had a negative association with waist-hip ratio, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, fasting blood sugar, high-density lipoprotein, and state and trait anxiety. The present study confirmed that pre-hypertensive and hypertensive subjects suffered from more oxidative stress than normotensive subjects.