A new study has confirmed people with high blood pressure have a much greater chance of developing diabetes.
The study looked at the health records of four million adults in the United Kingdom and clarified earlier research which had been inconclusive.
But the jury is still out on whether diabetes is actually caused by high blood pressure.
Professor Anoushka Patel, chief scientist at the George Institute for Global Health, said the new data was quite definitive.
She said those with high blood pressure had an almost 60 per cent greater chance of developing diabetes.
“The study used data from routine GP visits, so the data was very reliable and … a very large … number of patients were involved,” she said.
“We can’t say that it’s definitely caused by high blood pressure, the study design doesn’t allow us to make that conclusion. It’s highly suggested.”
Future studies needed to confirm causal link
Professor Patel said the study showed high blood pressure often preceded diabetes and not the other way around.
“The study … excluded people at the beginning who already had diabetes, so it only included people without diabetes, without heart disease,” she said.
“[It] looked at the heart pressure levels then looked at people over a period of time and looked at whether … they developed diabetes.
“It does actually present that relationship over time. Blood pressure’s respective to diabetes rather than the reverse.”
However, Professor Patel said researchers would need to do more to prove there was a causal link and investigate whether lowering high blood pressure could prevent diabetes.
“That’s what we are fundamentally interested in,” she said.
“We can do this in two ways, we can look at all the previous trails that have been done off blood pressure lowering and look at those studies which have also measured the development of diabetes [then] try and pull the results and see if we see an effect.
“But, it may also need new trials to look at this question as to whether blood pressure lowering prevents diabetes.”
The study has been published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.