Impact of Nocturnal Blood Pressure Patterns on BMI, Diabetes, and Cardiovascular Health: A Comprehensive Analysis

Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (ABPM) provides valuable insights into a patient's 24-hour blood pressure (BP) patterns, offering an enhanced assessment of cardiovascular health, particularly in relation to body mass index (BMI), diabetes, and menopausal status. This method provides a more comprehensive understanding of BP dynamics compared to traditional office-based measurements, assisting healthcare professionals with devising a more accurate assessment of a patient's cardiovascular risk. ABPM is increasingly growing in adoption as a service in medical practices and pharmacies due to the numerous advantages. This retrospective cohort study analyzes 24-hour ABPM data from 5618 participants to investigate the relationship between nocturnal BP fluctuations found through ABPM with BMI, diabetes, menopause and hypertension to ultimately assess whether these fluctuations are potentially connected to an increased risk of developing chronic conditions such as cardiovascular dysfunction. The ABPM nocturnal blood-pressure fluctuations are categorized within four distinct categories: normal dipping, non-dipping, reverse dipping, and extra dipping. The findings of this study show that 44.11% of participants exhibit hypertension, with most of these participants experiencing abnormal nocturnal blood pressure patterns. Increased BMI, particularly in overweight and moderately obese categories, was significantly associated with non-dipping patterns. In addition, the relationship between menopausal status for female participants and nocturnal dipping patterns, early morning hypertension and diabetes diagnoses are assessed. These findings underscore the importance of ABPM in detecting abnormal BP patterns and their associations with key health indicators, advocating for its broader integration in clinical settings.