The effect of oral glucose, protein, fat and water loading on blood pressure and the gastrointestinal peptides VIP and somatostatin in hypertensive elderly subjects.

In elderly subjects blood pressure (BP) may fall after a meal. It can be reproduced by oral glucose, but the effect of fat and protein ingestion on postprandial BP has not been reported. Furthermore, we hypothesized that vasoactive gastrointestinal peptides are involved in this phenomenon. We studied 10 hypertensive elderly subjects (mean age 74 +/- 3 years) for the effects of oral glucose, fat, protein and water loading on BP in relation to plasma concentrations of vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP), somatostatin and insulin. Glucose loading resulted in a decrease of mean arterial pressure by 14 +/- 2 mmHg (P less than or equal to 0.001). In contrast, the ingestion of fat, protein or water had no significant effect on BP. Somatostatin increased after fat and protein loading, whereas VIP increased only after fat loading. These data indicate that postprandial BP reduction in the elderly is related to glucose-related factors. The gut peptide VIP does not seem to play a role in this phenomenon.