Prevalence of hypertension in white, black and Asian diabetics in a district hospital diabetic clinic

In a District General Hospital Diabetic Clinic 40.0% of a random sample of diabetics under the age of 65 years of age were hypertensive. Black patients (48.9%) had greater (p less than 0.05) prevalence of hypertension than Whites (37.5%) and Asians (35.4%). Hypertension was more prevalent in females (49.1%) than males (33.0%) (p less than 0.001) in each ethnic group except Asians, and patients not receiving insulin had greater prevalence (45.6%) than those on insulin (30.7%) (p less than 0.001), except black diabetics where the reverse was found. There was a positive relationship between age and systolic (p less than 0.00001) and diastolic blood pressure (p less than 0.00001) and a negative association between duration of diabetes and diastolic blood pressure (p less than 0.004) on multiple regression analysis but no relationship was noted between blood pressure and either weight or blood glucose. Forty-six percent of all hypertensives were receiving conventional anti-hypertensive drug therapy; 38.7% were normotensive with similar results in each ethnic group and between the sexes. Isolated systolic hypertension was the commonest form of hypertension (48.3%) with isolated diastolic hypertension (4.9%) the rarest. These findings were observed regardless of the ethnic group or gender. Although in the majority of cases hypertension was mild these data confirm the importance of routine blood pressure measurement in diabetic patients.