Nifedipine Treatment for Hypertension is Associated with Enhanced Lipolytic Activity and Accelerated Clearance of Postprandial Lipemia

Hypertension, advanced age, postprandial hyperlipidemia, and insulin resistance are major risk factors for atherosclerosis. The calcium channel blocker nifedipine is reported to ameliorate insulin resistance possibly by activating PPAR. This is expected to become accentuated in elderly individuals due to age-related insulin resistance. Insulin resistance modulates lipoprotein metabolism. Therefore, we reasoned that nifedipne offers the potential for improving postprandial lipemia in association with increasing age. We studied the effect of nifedipine on fasting lipids, postprandial lipemia, insulin sensitivity, and plasma lipolytic activity in 24 and 15 hypertensive subjects aged 70-75 years and 40-45 years, respectively. As expected, nifedipine significantly lowered systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Nifedipine decreased fasting triglyceride level (23%) and increased HDL-C (15%) in the elderly group. At baseline, postprandial triglyceride levels were remarkably elevated in elderly compared to younger patients (1288 +/- 798 vs. 501 +/- 260mgdl(-1)h, p<0.05), as was retinyl palmitate (surrogate marker for intestinally-derived cholesterol) in the chylomicrons (45.0 +/- 26.5 vs. 23.4 +/- 10.6mgl(-1)h, p<0.05) and chylomicron remnant (15.2 +/- 5.4 vs. 11.7 +/- 4.7mgl(-1)h, p<0.05) fractions. Importantly, while the level of chylomicron remnants in the group of younger subjects remained unchanged after treatment, nifedipine was associated with a significantly decreased chylomicron remnants retinyl palmitate in the elderly group, which dropped to levels, observed in younger subjects. This was accompanied by enhanced insulin sensitivity and augmented plasma lipolytic activity. The present work suggests that nifedipine has favorable metabolic effects that are beyond the known enhancement of insulin sensitivity. The improvement in postprandial lipidemia by nifedipine may add to its anti-atherogenic effects in hypertensive patients.