ABSTRACT
The most common features of insulin resistance syndrome are obesity, insulin resistance/ hyperinsulinemia, dyslipidemia, impaired glucose intolerance and/or type 2 diabetes mellitus, and hypertension (Reaven, 1995; Hansen, 1999). Among these features, resistance to the metabolic effects of insulin and the compensatory hyperinsulinemia has been postulated to mediate human essential hypertension, especially when associated with obesity. Essential hypertensive subjects show reduced insulin sensitivity only through the non-oxidative pathway for glucose disposal, whereas obese and type 2 diabetes patients also have reduced glucose uptake through the oxidative pathway and reduced effects of insulin to suppress hepatic glucose output (Ferrannini et al., 1987; DeFronzo and Ferrannini, 1991). A causal link between hypertension and insulin resistance has not been clearly established, but several lines of evidence suggest that insulin resistance and the resultant hyperinsulinemia are causally related to hypertension in animals (Mark and Anderson, 1995; Sechi, 1999) and humans (Reaven, 1991; Landsberg, 1996).
