Association between obesity status change and hypertension onset: a community-based longitudinal cohort study in north china

Objective: Our study aimed to investigate the association between obesity status change and hypertension onset based on a longitudinal community-based cohort study in north China. Design and method: A total of 2618 individuals free of hypertension at baseline were collected from the longitudinal cohort study from 2011 to 2019. The correlation between the obesity status change and the hypertension onset was analyzed by inter groups differences analysis, an adjusted Cox regression model, and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. Furthermore, the forest plot was used to visualize the subgroups analysis results including age, gender, and the differences of BMI and blood pressure between the baseline and the follow-up. Results: Over nearly 7 years follow-up, a total of 811 (31%) were found to develop future hypertension. The new-onset hypertension was mostly observed in participants who were keeping obese all the time (P for trend < 0.01). In the fully adjusted Cox regression model, keeping obese all the time would result in a 30.10% elevated risk of hypertension. The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed the change in obesity status as an important feature to predict the occurrence of hypertension. What's more, we found the female gender and age over 60 years old were the important risks for people with different degree of BMI to have future hypertension. Conclusions: This study suggested maintaining obesity status was significantly associated with the risk of hypertension onset among Chinese adults based on a community-based longitudinal cohort. Even if people delivered weight loss after obesity, their hypertension level could not return to normal in a short time.