Correlation of diabetes complications with blood pressure variability

Introduction: India is suffering from an epidemic of noncommunicable diseases. Type 2 diabetes and hypertension are two lifestyle diseases which are often coexistent. The present study aimed to assess whether blood pressure (BP) variability has any correlation with the prevalence of chronic complications of diabetes. Materials and Methods: In a hospital-based cross-sectional study, 116 patients of newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes were enrolled. Ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) for 24 h duration was performed in all the study participants. The abnormal patterns of BP were analyzed. Results: Out of 100 patients with valid ABPM data, 62% of patients had masked hypertension, 45% had nondipping pattern, and 13% had reverse dipping pattern. The prevalence of diabetes complications both macrovascular and microvascular was significantly higher in patients who had abnormal dipping patterns. Conclusion: Our findings highlight the importance of ABPM which detects masked hypertension, white-coat hypertension, and abnormal BP patterns which are related to complications of diabetes.