Pulse pressure and heart rate in patients with metabolic syndrome across Europe: insights from the GOOD survey.

The Global Cardiometabolic Risk Profile in Patients with hypertension disease (GOOD) survey investigated the global cardiometabolic risk profile in 3464 adult outpatients with hypertension across 289 sites in 12 European countries. The pulse pressure and heart rate profile of the survey population was evaluated according to the presence or absence of metabolic syndrome and/or type 2 diabetes mellitus. History and treatment of hypertension were not counted as criteria for metabolic syndrome as they applied to all patients. Out of the 3370 recruited patients, 1033 had metabolic syndrome and 1177 had neither metabolic syndrome nor diabetes. When compared with patients with no metabolic syndrome or diabetes, patients with metabolic syndrome had higher pulse pressure (59±14 vs. 55±14 mm Hg) and heart rate (75.2±11.0 vs. 72.5±10.0 beats per min) (P<0.001 for both), independent of the concomitant presence or absence of diabetes, despite a more prevalent use of β-blockers. In conclusion, in hypertensive outpatients the presence of metabolic syndrome is associated with increased heart rate and pulse pressure, which may at least in part reflect increased arterial stiffness and increased sympathetic tone. This may contribute, to some extent, to explaining the increased cardiovascular risk attributed to the presence of metabolic syndrome.