Relationship between abdominal obesity and C-reactive protein in combination with hypertension in middle-aged and older adults: insights from the CHARLS study

Background Hypertension is a global public health problem, and as good prevention and management of hypertension can effectively reduce the risk of myocardial infarction and stroke, thereby significantly reducing the health economic burden, exploring more risk factors used to identify hypertension remains necessary. Aim To investigate whether the combination of elevated hs-CRP levels and abdominal obesity increases the risk of hypertension in middle-aged and older adults. Methods This study used data from 3439 investigators aged 45 years and older who participated in the 2015 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). Hypertension, waist circumference, and hs-CRP were measured. logistic regression adjusted for confounding variables was used to examine the association between abdominal obesity and hs-CRP under the combination with hypertension. Results The risk of hypertension was significantly increased when participants had both abdominal obesity and high hs-CRP levels. Even after adjusting for covariates, a significant risk of hypertension was still possible (OR = 1.71, 95% CI:1.33–2.20). Sex- and age-stratified analyses showed that the association between abdominal obesity and high hs-CRP levels in combination with incident hypertension was more likely to be observed in participants under 60 years of age (OR = 1.72, 95% CI:1.15–2.59) and in women (OR = 1.72, 95% CI:1.15–2.59). Conclusions The findings suggest that elevated hs-CRP levels in combination with abdominal obesity may increase the risk of hypertensive events in the middle-aged and elderly Chinese population.