Why do so many people with diabetes also have high blood pressure?

Common Association: Diabetes and high blood pressure are often seen together in patients. The linke between these two risk factors for heart disease is found in the metabolic syndrome. Factors produced by fat tissue often can change our body's response to blood pressure or cholesterol and triglyceride (fat) metabolism. Low HDL (good cholesterol) and high triglycerides are also associated with this syndrome.

Important to treat: Patients with high blood pressure and diabetes need more agressive treatment than those without diabetes. The goal blood pressure for most patients is 140/80 mmhg, but for those with diabetes, our current guidelines recommend a lower target of 130/80. These two conditions do increase the risk of heart disease and kidney disease, and controlling blood pressure in diabetics can reduce this risk also.

Cause and effect: One of the big causes of diabetes also happens to be obesity. Obesity is a known cause of high blood pressure as well. So it's the underlying cause of both diseases, as well as hyperlipidemia or high cholesterol. We call this syndrome x or metabolic syndrome. The high sugars in the blood stream also lead to shift of fluids into the vascular space, causing high blood pressure as well.

Same issues: Two main reasons - reason 1 - same risk factors - obesity is a biggy - now what's the funnest way to get obese? High salt foods - reason 2 - diabetes causes kidney disease which can cause and contribute to hypertension.

Similar risk factors: First, some risk factors are the same, i.e. Obesity and sedentary lifestyle. Second, these are both components of the metabolic syndrome, a constellation of heart risk factors that tend to run together - diabetes, high blood pressure, high triglycerides and low hdl.