So much has been said and written about the kidney as an etiological factor in essential hypertension, almost as a unique cause, that it would be of value to review some other aspects of this disorder. Data on the possible significance of some non-renal mechanisms which function in essential hypertension in relation to the treatment of this condition by the drugs in current use would cover cert...

It is not possible to understand the etiology of hypertension without considering the role of inheritance. Epidemiological evidence indicates that the development of high blood pressure in the population at large depends on the interaction of different types of genes and several environmental influences. The sources of genetic variation in blood pressure distribution are polygenes, polymorphic ...

T HE pathogenesis of essential hypertension, which accounts for 95 per cent of hypertensions seen clinically, is still unknown despite extensive research during the past 25 years. These studies, however, have indicated that there are neurogenic, electrolyte, endocrine, and renal changes in pathophysiology that may have pathogenetic significance for essential hypertension. These changes may be i...

MANY FACTORS have been implicated in the etiology of essential hypertension and at present the primary cause of this disease remains obscure. The relationship of sodium to the development of hypertension and the question of involvement of the adrenal cortex has been the subject of numerous investigations. Efforts by earlier investigators to show a hypersecretion of corticosteroids in this condi...

Patients with essential hypertension show impaired endothelium-dependent vasodilation induced by acetylcholine. Because dietary potassium supplementation increases endothelium-dependent relaxations to acetylcholine in hypertensive rats, we designed the present study to investigate whether potassium increases endothelium-dependent vasodilation in essential hypertensive patients. Therefore, in pa...

Essential hypertension affects 1 billion people worldwide and its genetic basis is well established. For this review we surveyed the literature on the genetics of hypertension during the past 18 months and we now report the highlights. There has been publication of the two largest genome scans for blood pressure and new loci including significant linkage to chromosome 6q have been reported. The...

The dynamics of telomere attrition in human beings might shape the course of age-dependent, complex genetic traits. One of these traits is essential hypertension. Age-dependent telomere attrition could lead to critically shortened telomeres and aneuploidy (ie, the loss or gain of chromosomes) with a resultant mosaicism that will be variably expressed in different cells and tissues. The chromoso...

Essential hypertension (HTN) usually clusters with other cardiovascular risk factors such as age, overweight, diabetes, insulin resistance and dyslipidemia. The target organ damage (TOD) such as left ventricular hypertrophy, microalbuminuria (MA), acute coronary syndrome (ACS), stroke and cognitive dysfunction takes place early in course of hypertension. Though the prevalence of hypertension is...