Microalbuminuria and its relations with serum lipid abnormalities in adult Nigerians with newly diagnosed hypertension

Background: Microalbuminuria (MA) has been associated with increased risk of adverse cardiovascular events in nondiabetic hypertensive patients. This may be partly due to increased serum lipid abnormalities in these patients. The objective was to evaluate the association between MA and serum lipid abnormalities in nondiabetic adult Nigerians with hypertension. Materials and Methods: A prospective study which recruited 96 consecutive newly diagnosed adult Nigerian hypertensive met the study criteria. These patients were compared with the same number of age- and sex-matched healthy normotensive individuals. Results: 52 (54.2%) and 44 (45.8%) of patients were males and females, respectively. Mean ± SD ages were 51.2 ± 10.1 and 48.2 ± 8.8 years for male and female patients, respectively. Microalbuminuria was more than five times more prevalent in the patients than in the controls. The means ± SD serum total cholesterol (5.0 ± 0.56 vs. 4.05 ± 0.50 mmol/L, P = 0.04) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (3.99 ± 0.49 vs. 2.84 ± 0.58 mmol/L, P = 0.001) were significantly higher, while the mean ± SD for high-density lipoprotein cholesterol was (0.91 ± 0.16 vs. 1.04 ± 0.13 mmol/L, P = 0.03) significantly lower in microalbuminuric patients than in non-microalbuminuric patients. Conclusion: This study has shown that adult nondiabetic Nigerians with MA are significantly more likely to have dyslipidemia than patients without MA. Hence, this subset of hypertensive patients constitutes a high risk group. Screening for MA, and early recognition and prompt treatment of serum lipid abnormalities in these patients may reduce the risk of adverse cardiovascular events.