Glucose intolerance as a predictor of hypertension in pregnancy

Abstract Insulin resistance is associated with and may be causal in essential hypertension, but the relation between insulin resistance and hypertension arising de novo in preg-nancy is unclear. Transient hypertension of pregnancy (new-onset nonproteinuric hypertension of late pregnancy) is asso-ciated with a high risk of later essential hypertension and thus may have similar pathophysiology. To assess the association between glucose intolerance and subsequent development of proteinuric and nonproteinuric hypertension in pregnancy in women without underlying essential hypertension or overt glucose intolerance, we performed a retrospective case-control study comparing glucose levels on routine screening for gesta-tional diabetes mellitus among women subsequently develop-ing hypertension. Women who developed hypertension in pregnancy (n=97) had significantly higher glucose levels o