Association between hemoglobin variability and incidence of hypertension over 40 years: a Korean national cohort study

Hemoglobin level determines blood viscosity and as hemoglobin level rises, blood pressure rises. However, hemoglobin level in individuals is not fixed and change in hemoglobin is affected by various clinical conditions. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the hemoglobin variability affects the development of hypertension using Korean cohort database. This study was conducted with 94,798 adults (age ≥ 40 years) who visited the health screening in 2006 or 2007 (index year) and had at least 3 health screenings from 2002 to 2007. Hemoglobin variability was assessed by 3 indices of coefficient of variation (CV), standard deviation, and variability independent of the mean. Cox proportional hazard regression analysis was performed for each index of quartile groups (Q1–Q4). A total of 29,145 participants (30.7%) had the incidence of hypertension during a median follow-up of 7.4 ± 2.5 years. In the multivariable adjusted model, the hazard ratio and 95% confidence interval for incidence of hypertension of Q2, Q3, and Q4 compared with Q1 of hemoglobin variability CV were 1.014 [0.981–1.047], 1.064 [1.030–1.099] and 1.094 [1.059–1.131] respectively. The results were consistent in various sensitivity and subgroup analyses. This study showed that hemoglobin variability could be associated with hypertension development.