Glucose tolerance in spontaneously hypertensive rats

In order to clarify the relationship between essential hypertension and glucose metabolism, and to approach the pathophysiology or the etiology of essential hypertension, we examined glucose tolerance test (GTT) using spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) as models. SHR, namely stroke-prone SHR (SHRSP) and stroke-resistant SHR (SHRSR) always had higher serum glucose levels at each GTT phase than normotensive control Wistar-Kyoto rats. They also tended to show higher levels in the young even at 5 weeks of age rather than in the adult. These results indicate that hyperglycemic tendency or lower glucose tolerance may be a characteristic of spontaneous hypertension and may be related to the mechanism of hypertension.