Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) has evolved as a significant and common complication of diabetes. Patients with CKD are at more than double the risk for treatment-resistant hypertension, although certain subgroups carry a higher risk than others, according to Paul Muntner, PhD, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and colleagues. The rate of apparent treatment-resistant hypertension was 28.1% among those with chronic kidney disease and 13.6% among those with normal kidney function.

Within the group with CKD, however, a lower risk of treatment-resistant hypertension was seen in women (prevalence ratio 0.87) and greater risks were seen in relation to black race, larger waist circumference, diabetes, a history of myocardial infarction or stroke, statin use, and worsening renal function (prevalence ratios 1.13 to 2.24), the researchers reported online in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

The increased risk of treatment-resistant hypertension in patients with chronic kidney disease remained significant in analyses that adjusted for age, race, sex, geographic region, income, education, physical activity, smoking status, alcohol use, waist circumference, diabetes, total and HDL cholesterol, statin use, C-reactive protein, history of myocardial infarction or stroke, ACR, and eGFR, with prevalence ratios ranging from 1.20 to 2.44.