Relationship between atherogenic index of plasma and non-dipping circadian pattern in hypertensive patients

Abstract Hypertension is considered as a major cause for the presence of cardiovascular diseases. Many researches have pointed that atherogenic index of plasma (AIP), which indicates plasma atherogenicity, can severely result in all-cause mortality, cardiovascular morbidity, atherosclerosis and high risk of blockage in the coronary arteries. Within this context, we tried to evaluate the correlation between non-dipping circadian pattern and AIP. We enrolled 1030 hypertensive clients in total as part of the target population, who are separated into two different groups considering the circadian blood pressure (BP) pattern taken from dipper and non-dipper groups subsequent to twenty-four-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM). We calculated the values of AIP using the log-transformation of the triglyceride to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio. The AIP observed in the non-dipper group was remarkably higher than those of the dipper group (p < 0.001). After measuring the patients’ 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, we determined that AIP had a positive correlation with nighttime systolic BP (r = 0.090, p = 0.004) and nighttime diastolic BP (r = 0.073, p = 0.019). As for the analysis based on the multivariate logistic regression, high AIP as well as age were detected to be predictor variables of non-dipping pattern. AIP can independently predict the presence of non-dipping circadien pattern in clients with hypertension, which may be a simple and easily calculable marker for judging variability in ambulatory blood pressure.