Association between serum adiponectin and risk of incident hypertension: the REGARDS study

Hypertension is a cardiovascular disease risk factor disproportionately affecting Black adults. Adiponectin is a cytokine secreted by adipocytes that improves insulin sensitivity, maintains vascular homeostasis, and is inversely associated with adiposity. We sought to determine the risk of incident hypertension by level of adiponectin.

The REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study recruited 30 239 adults from 2003 to 2007. We included REGARDS participants in the Biomarkers as Mediators of Racial Disparities in Risk Factors (BioMedioR) substudy. We estimated the risk ratio for incident hypertension in unadjusted and adjusted models for demographics factors, dietary patterns, measures of adiposity, and SBP.

Inverse odds ratio weighting estimated the excess hypertension incidence among Black participants that was explained by adiponectin. Of the 1498 BioMedioR participants, 35% developed incident hypertension in follow-up. White adults had higher baseline adiponectin levels than Black adults. For each 1-SD higher log adiponectin, the risk ratio of hypertension was 0.90 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.84-0.96] in an unadjusted model, 0.92 (0.86-1.00) in a demographic adjusted model, and 0.99 (0.91-1.07) in a fully adjusted model. Lower adiponectin mediated 21-46% of the excess risk of incident hypertension among Black relative to White participants in models adjusting for just demographics and dietary patterns.

Among Black and White adults, lower adiponectin was associated with a greater risk of incident hypertension in unadjusted and minimally adjusted models. Future studies into how adiponectin changes in obesity could help to further explain its impact on hypertension risk.