Relationship between copeptin and nocturnal blood pressure in young and healthy adults

Abstract

Purpose: Copeptin is a vasopressin related stress hormone. We investigated whether copeptin is associated with 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure (BP) levels in young and healthy adults. Method: The Genetic and Phenotypic Determinants of Blood Pressure and Other Cardiovascular Risk Factors (GAPP) study is a population based cohort study of healthy adults aged 25-41 years in the Principality of Liechtenstein. Individuals with BMI >35 kg/m2 and prevalent cardiovascular disease were excluded. Copeptin was assayed using an immunoluminometric assay (BRAHMS GmbH). Ambulatory BP monitoring was performed using a validated, fully automatic, non-invasive device (Schiller BR-102 plus). Results: Of 1443 individuals included in this study, 53% were female. The median age was 38 years, BMI was 24.2 kg/m2, and 21% were active smokers. The median copeptin levels were 3.7 (interquartile range [IQR]: 2.5, 5.7) and 2.3 pmol/l (IQR: 1.6, 3.4) in men and women, respectively. In multivariable regression models, log-transformed copeptin was significantly associated with systolic and diastolic BP during sleep, as shown in the Table. However, copeptin was not associated with daytime BP levels. The relationship between copeptin and nighttime BP seemed to be stronger in men compared to women (p for interaction 0.005). View this table: Multivariable linear regression analysis Conclusion: In this large population based study of healthy adults, the stress hormone copeptin was significantly associated with elevated nighttime but not daytime BP levels. Our data therefore suggest that stress may be involved in BP elevations during sleep.