Interaction between risk factors strongly indicative of hypertension

Family history (FH) and diabetes appear to be important risk factors for hypertension, along with lifestyle behaviours such as smoking and drinking, a recent study has found. These risk factors are often not independent from each other.

The researchers conducted a 1:1 case-control study including 342 hypertension patients (aged 28–87 years; 50.73 percent) and 342 controls. Trained public health investigators collected relevant information through a unified structured questionnaire.

Logistic regression analysis identified FH as a significant risk factor for hypertension (odds ratio [OR], 4.103, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 2.660–6.330), as was diabetes history (OR, 4.219, 95 percent CI, 2.926–6.083).

The same was true for drinking (OR, 1.391, 95 percent CI, 1.010–1.914) and smoking (OR, 1.057, 95 percent CI, 1.000–1.117) behaviours.

Interaction analysis further revealed an interactivity with each other. For example, the interactive effects between FH and diabetes increased the odds of hypertension by more than 16 times (OR, 16.537, 95 percent CI, 10.070–21.157), an impact much stronger than each individual factor.

FH also interacted with the other observed risk factors, such as drinking (OR, 4.000, 95 percent CI, 2.461–6.502) and smoking (OR, 5.526, 95 percent CI, 3.404–8.972).

“[T]here were also interactions among acquired factors, and the interaction among multiple factors may be even more different,” the researchers said, adding that rather than focusing on each individual factor’s impact on hypertension risk, more attention should be paid to the interactions between and among different risk factors.