Interleukin-6 in obese type II diabetes with hypertension

Background: Type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and obesity are found to be associated with increased incidence of hypertension, although the mechanisms facilitating hypertension in T2DM or nondiabetic individuals are not clear.Methods: We compared the levels of fasting plasma glucose, HbA1c, lipid subfractions and inflammatory cytokine interleukin 6 (IL-6), being risk factors previously found to be associated with hypertension, in T2DM patients showing increased body weight (obese and overweight with body mass index, BMI ≥25 kg/m2) with hypertension (group A, n=30), or without hypertension (group B, n=30), and in non-obese (BMI <25 kg/m2), normotensive controls (group C, n=40).Results: BMI, HbA1c, fasting plasma glucose, total cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol and LDL cholesterol were found to be significantly higher in group A, B Vs C (p <0.05). Also, IL-6 levels were significantly higher both in group A and B compared to group C. The highest level of IL-6 was found in group A, being significantly higher than in group B (A: 14.34 ± 4.98 pg/ml; B: 10.66 ± 1.16 pg/ml; C: 7.41 ± 0.54 pg/ml, A vs. B p<0.001; A, B vs. C p<0.001).Conclusions: Our results have shown that appearance of hypertension in T2DM patients with increased body weight was dependent on rise in inflammatory marker IL-6 cytokine.