[The effect of acute hyperinsulinemia on arterial pressure in healthy individuals]

To assess if induced hyperinsulinemia enhances blood pressure (BP), three tests were performed to nine healthy volunteers as follows: A. After an oral dextrose load (75 g), 250 ml of 0.9% NaCl plus 25 g dextrose were infused in three hours. B. The same procedure, plus 15 U of regular insulin in the intravenous solution. C. (control) The same procedure but without insulin and dextrose. Pulse and BP were measured every 15 minutes, serum glucose and insulin were determined hourly. Hyperinsulinemia from 2 to 7-fold the basal value was induced in the test A, and from 7 to 30-fold in the test B (P less than 0.01). BP did not rise with hyperinsulinemia, but a slight and nonsignificant decrease of mean BP and higher heart rate (P less than 0.05) were noticed at the third hour in the test B. Acute hyperinsulinemia do not cause high BP. A cause-effect relationship between hyperinsulinemia and hypertension is still unproved.