Type of obesity and blood pressure.

To explore the relationship between blood pressure on the one hand and body composition variables and fat cell size and number on the other, these factors were determined in a population sample (n = 120) of 49-year-old men with blood pressure (BP) ranging from very low to very high. BP increased linearly with body weight throughout the entire BP range, while body fat and fat cell size increased with increasing BP in the nonhypertensive but not in the hypertensive BP range. Body cell mass and fat cell number were unrelated to BP. Fat cell size (but not fat cell number) was positively correlated with most variables of glucose metabolism. It can be concluded that in normal men: the previously well-established relationship between body weight and BP is explained by an association between body fat and BP; BP is positively correlated with increased fat cell size, indicating hypertrophic obesity, while BP is unrelated to fat cell number; and increased fat cell size is associated with impaired glucose tolerance and hyperinsulinemia. The results point to the possibility that hypertrophic obesity and essential hypertension may be related to each other via common pathogenetic mechanisms.