Some people with type 2 diabetes need to take insulin, and this seems to heighten their risk of developing high blood pressure, according to a Taiwan study.
Type 2 diabetes is caused not by a lack of production of insulin in the pancreas, but by the body's resistance to its glucose regulating action. Nevertheless, some people with the condition may need to take extra insulin to overcome this resistance.
Using national health insurance records, Dr. Chin-Hsiao Tseng from the National Taiwan University Hospital in Taipei identified 87,850 adults with type 2 diabetes, including 5,927 insulin users.
The likelihood that they would have high blood pressure increased with the duration of insulin use, the team reports in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Compared with those who didn't use insulin, the chances of developing high blood pressure were 14 percent higher in those who used insulin for less than 5 years. The risk was increased to 35 percent with 5 to 9 years of insulin use, and to 46 percent after 10 years or more.
The reason for this could be that people taking insulin "may be repetitively exposed to high concentrations of insulin," Tseng explains. "This excess of insulin may exert detrimental effects on the vascular system, leading to elevated blood pressure."
SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, June 12, 2006.
胰岛素可能会升高2型糖尿病人的血压
一些2型糖尿病人需要胰岛素治疗，但一项台湾的研究显示这可能会使患高血压的风险增加。
2型糖尿病的发生不是由于胰腺胰岛素生成缺乏，而是由于机体对胰岛素血糖调节作用的抵抗，一些胰岛素抵抗病人可能需要注射胰岛素来克服这种抵抗。
来自国立台大医院的Tseng Chin-Hsiao医生根据国家健康保险记录筛查出87850位2型糖尿病人，其中5927位病人使用过胰岛素。
发表在Archives of Internal Medicine的这个队列报道结果表明使用胰岛素的2型糖尿病人在胰岛素使用期间发生高血压的可能性增加。
与未使用胰岛素病人相比，使用胰岛素少于5年的病人高血压的发病率增加14％，而使用胰岛素5～9年和10年或更长的病人其发病率分别增加35％和46％。
Tseng解释其原因可能是使用胰岛素的病人经常处于高胰岛素状态，胰岛素过多可能对血管系统产生不利的影响而导致血压升高。
本文由丁香园网友sjx221翻译。
编辑：西门吹血
