Purpose -To evaluate left ventricular mass (LVM) index in hypertensive and normotensive obese individuals. Methods -Echocardiographic evaluation of hypertensive individuals is based on preestablished guidelines for detecting left ventricular hypertrophy, determined in relation to populations of normotensive individuals. In turn, the definition of normal left ventricular mass implies its correction by influencing physiological factors. Thus, sex, body habitus, and possibly age are of importance in this correction.The best index of left ventricular mass is that obtained using the physiological scale of weight and height variables, regarding both men and women.Therefore, the ideal index would be lean body mass 1 , but this method is not practical and has not been used. Thus, indexing ventricular mass by body surface area (BSA) is preferred 2 . However, such an index leads to underestimation of left ventricular hypertrophy in obese individuals (with a greater BSA), because its regards obesity as a continuous physiological variable that would determine increases in left ventricular mass also on a physiological scale 3 . To correct this, use of mass by height, whose limits are within the physiological range and thus maintain a normal and not a pathological relation to ventricular mass, has been proposed as an index [4][5][6] . More recent studies 7-11 further suggest that left ventricular mass index should be determined by height or even height raised to a power of 2, 2.7, or 2.13, because no first order relation has been demonstrated between height and left ventricular mass.In this sense, some selection criteria have been established that have been used for the correction of mass by these proposed indexers (men -126/143g/m; 49.2g/m 2.7 ; women -105/102g/m; 46.7g/m 2.7 )4,11 . Such criteria, up to the present, have preferentially been used in larger population studies 11,[13][14][15][16] with the purpose of detecting the impact of the different indexes used on the prevalence of

Background: Obesity derived from intra-abdominal fat deposition tends to increase hormonal and cytokine production, thus worsening insulin sensitivity and leading to endothelial dysfunction. Hyperinsulinemia is considered an independent risk factor for ischemic heart disease and cause of endothelial dysfunction in healthy individuals.

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