Associations of proteinuria and the estimated glomerular filtration rate with incident hypertension in young to middle-aged Japanese males

- The present study was a 10-year cohort study of Japanese males.
- We investigated the associations between proteinuria/eGFR and incident hypertension.
- Proteinuria (≥+) was significantly associated with incident hypertension.
- A reduced eGFR (< 50 ml/min/1.73 m2) was significantly associated with incident hypertension.
- Both proteinuria and a reduced eGFR are predictors of incident hypertension.

ObjectiveTo investigate the independent associations of proteinuria and the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) with incident hypertension.MethodsWe investigated 29,181 Japanese males 18-59 years old without hypertension in 2000 and examined whether proteinuria and the eGFR predicted incident hypertension independently over 10 years. Incident hypertension was defined as a newly detected blood pressure of ≥ 140/90 mm Hg and/or the initiation of antihypertensive drugs. Proteinuria and the eGFR were categorized as dipstick negative (reference), trace or ≥ 1 + and ≥ 60 (reference), 50-59.9 or < 50 ml/min/1.73 m2, respectively. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs) of incident hypertension.ResultsAt baseline, 236 (0.8%) and 477 (1.6%) participants had trace and ≥ 1 + dipstick proteinuria, while 1416 (4.9%) and 129 (0.4%) participants had an eGFR of 50-59.9 and < 50 ml/min/1.73 m2, respectively. The adjusted HRs were significant for proteinuria ≥ 1 + (HRs 1.20, 95% CI: 1.06-1.35) and an eGFR of < 50 ml/min/1.73 m2 (1.29, 1.03-1.61). When two non-referent categories were combined (dipstick ≥ trace vs. negative and eGFR < 60 vs. ≥ 60 ml/min/1.73 m2), the association was more significant for proteinuria (1.15, 1.04-1.27) than for eGFR (0.99, 0.92-1.07).ConclusionsProteinuria and a reduced eGFR are independently associated with future hypertension in young to middle-aged Japanese males.