Elevated resting heart rate (RHR) and
obesity are important risk factors for
hypertension. However, studies are rare on the combined impact of RHR and
obesity on
prehypertension and
hypertension. This study aimed to investigate the association between RHR and
hypertension with different waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) in Chinese. The population-based cross-sectional study was conducted during 2013-2015 in Henan province, China, and 15,536 participants aged ≥15 years were included. RHR was classified according to sex-specific quartiles. The cutoff value of WHtR was 0.5 in both sexes. Multilinear and multilogistic regression models were used to evaluate the association of RHR and WHtR with
prehypertension and
hypertension. In both sexes, higher RHR was associated with higher blood pressure and lower pulse pressure. Compared with the lowest RHR quartile, participants in the highest RHR quartile had an increased risk of
prehypertension (odds ratio [OR]: 1.40, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.18-1.65; OR: 1.27, 95% CI: 1.09-1.48) and
hypertension (OR: 1.75, 95% CI: 1.43-2.15; OR: 1.36, 95% CI: 1.13-1.63) for male and female, respectively, after fully adjusting the data. In addition, adjusted
ORs for
prehypertension and
hypertension of participants with high WHtR and high RHR were 2.91 (95% CI: 2.38-3.55) and 6.28 (4.96-7.97) for male and 2.45 (2.05-2.93) and 4.63 (3.66-5.85) for female, respectively, compared with the normal WHtR and normal RHR. In conclusion, elevated RHR was significantly associated with the risk of
prehypertension and
hypertension in Chinese and WHtR as a measure of
abdominal obesity further increased this association.