Association of Serum Glucocorticoids with Various Blood Pressure Indices in Patients with Dysglycemia and Hypertension: the Henan Rural Cohort Study

Objective To our knowledge, no definitive conclusion has been reached regarding the relationship between glucocorticoids and hypertension. Here, we aimed to explore the characteristics of glucocorticoids in participants with dysglycemia and hypertension, and to analyze their association with blood pressure indicators.Methods The participants of this study were from the Henan Rural Cohort study. A total of 1,688 patients 18–79 years of age were included in the matched case control study after application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Statistical methods were used to analyze the association between glucocorticoids and various indices of blood pressure, through approaches such as logistic regression analysis, trend tests, linear regression, and restricted cubic regression.Results The study population consisted of 552 patients with dysglycemia and hypertension（32.7%）.The patients with co-morbidities had higher levels of serum cortisol（P = 0.009） and deoxycortisol（P ＜0.001）. The adjusted odds ratios（and 95% confidence intervals） for dysglycemia with hypertension were1.55（1.18, 2.04） for the highest tertile of Ln-cortisol compared with the lowest tertile. Additionally, the highest Ln-deoxycortisol levels were associated with increased prevalence of dysglycemia with hypertension by 159%（95% confidence interval: 122%, 207%）.Conclusions Serum deoxycortisol was positively correlated with systolic blood pressure, pulse pressure, mean arterial pressure, mean blood pressure, and mean proportional arterial pressure.Glucocorticoids（deoxycortisol and cortisol） increase the risk of hypertension in people with dysglycemia, particularly in those with T2 DM.