Background: Twenty-four hours dynamic blood pressure (BP) behaviour displays dipper profile defined as nocturnal systolic BP (SBP) reduction>10% compared to daytime. Non-dipper profile, nocturnal absence of SBP fall, associates an increased cardiovascular risk. We investigated the concomitant association of inflammatory bio-markers - high-sensitivity- C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), Human Chitinase3-like1 (YKL-40) and autonomic nervous system (total brain-derived neurotrophic factor, BDNF) with respect to non-dipping blood pressure status.
Material and method: Using 24h automatic BP measurements, 80 known hypertensive patients were divided into two groups: dipper group included fifty-one dipper patients (age 55.6 ±13.5 years) and non-dipper group consisted of 29 non-dipper subjects (62.07±12.03 years). Serum levels of hs-CRP were evaluated with enhanced immunoturbidimetric assay. Plasma levels of YKL-40 were measured by commercial sandwich ELISA using microplate coated with a monoclonal antibody for CHI3L1. Plasma levels of total BDNF were determined using quantitative sandwich enzyme-linked immunoassay. Statistical analysis of obtained data was performed.
Results: In the non-dipper group, a significant positive association with age over 60 years, hs-CRP values above 1.90 mg/dl was observed along with increased mean values of YKL-40. Non-dipper status is independently and statistically significantly associated with elevated levels of hs-CRP (OR: 3.248, 95% CI: 1.022-10.317, p=0.046) in multivariate odds ratio analysis. No statistically significant positive association between a median total BDNF plasma level of 1430 pg/ml and the non-dipper hypertension profile was identified.
Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that patients over 60 years, in particular, have a higher probability to present a non-dipping pattern of hypertension. hs-CRP and YKL-40 values are more likely to increase in the non-dipping hypertensive patients, and hs-CRP values above 1.9 mg/dl can identify the presence of a non-dipper blood pressure profile.
