Background: High blood pressure, in relation to blood levels of adipokines such as adiponectin and leptin, is highly associated with an unhealthy lifestyle including sedentary behaviors, poor dietary habits such as excess sodium intake, and heavy drinking. Strategies to reduce blood pressure may benefit the levels of adipokines.
Objective: Thus, we aimed to investigate the effects of lifestyle intervention on blood pressure and serum adipokines in middle-aged Korean men with borderline high blood pressure (systolic blood pressure [SBP] ≥ 130 mm Hg or diastolic blood pressure [DBP] ≥ 85 mm Hg).
Methods: Fifty-two men (aged 42.5 ± 8.5 years) with normal weight (body mass index [BMI] < 25 kg/m(2)) and high BP (NH group) and 40 men (age 42.0 ± 8.4 years) who were obese (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m(2)) with high BP (OH group) underwent 5 sessions of one-on-one intensive counseling including instruction on a nutritionally balanced diet, a low-sodium diet, how to understand calorie requirements, and strategies to implement regular exercise for blood pressure regulation over 12 weeks. In order to increase the awareness of sodium education, a salt sensory test using an unseasoned soup was performed. Anthropometrics, blood pressure measurements, 24-hour recalls were performed, and blood levels of lipids, fasting plasma glucose, C-reactive protein (CRP), leptin, and adiponectin were analyzed at week 0 and at week 12. Sodium consumption was roughly estimated using the Dish-based Frequency Questionnaire-15.
Results: Weight, BMI, body fat (kg and %), waist circumference, hip circumference, and blood pressure were significantly decreased after 12 weeks (p < 0.05) in all subjects. Similarly, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and CRP were decreased (p < 0.05), but LDL-C/HDL-C was significantly decreased (p < 0.01) only in the obese subjects. At baseline, blood levels of leptin were significantly higher in the obese subjects than in the normal weight subjects. In the obese subjects, a significantly negative correlation was found between leptin levels at baseline and percentage change in DBP (r = -0.338, p < 0.05). After 12 weeks, blood levels of adipokines did not show significant changes.
Conclusions: These results suggest that a short-term (12 weeks) lifestyle intervention had positive effects on blood pressure control and weight reduction in the subjects, but not on their blood levels of adipokines. It is interesting that blood level of baseline leptin was negatively associated with the changes in blood pressure after this short-term intervention.