Prevalence of lipid and glycaemic abnormalities in hypertensive patients: a retrospective survey.

A number of coronary heart disease (CHD) risk factors such as dyslipidaemia and diabetes are known to coexist along with hypertension, itself a major CHD risk factor. Indian data on the coexistence of these risk factors is scanty. Epidemiologic studies in India have focused more on the prevalence of CHD in various communities or the correlation of various risk factors with CHD. However, we could not find any large-scale study showing the prevalence of lipid and glycaemic abnormalities in hypertensive patients. This retrospective survey was therefore carried out to estimate the prevalence of metabolic (lipid and glycaemic) abnormalities in hypertensive subjects. The records of persons coming for a health check-up at the Apollo hospitals were screened to obtain 501 consecutive evaluable records of patients who had hypertension or were taking antihypertensive drugs. We found that in 57 percent of these, the levels of total cholesterol were > or = 200 mg/dl and in 37 percent, LDL cholesterol was > or = 130 mg/dl. An elevated ratio of total to HDL cholesterol (> 4.5) was present in 11 percent of patients. Serum triglycerides were > or = 200 mg/dl in 30 percent, and > or = 400 mg/dl in 6 percent. Thirty-six percent of all the hypertensives were either on antidiabetic drugs or had fasting blood sugar values of more than 120 mg/dl. Our findings are thus in agreement with those for the Western population.