Ethnic differences in genetic predisposition to hypertension

Ethnic differences in genetic predisposition to  hypertension

Por: Norihiro Kato.  Hypertension Research (2012) 35, 574–581.

Genetic, environmental and demographic factors and their interaction determine an individual’s risk for hypertension. Despite considerable efforts to investigate the genetic basis of hypertension, or elevated blood pressure (BP) levels, the inherently complex nature hampered progress in the elucidation of the genes involved and yielded little success until 2009 when two consortia-based meta-analyses of genome-wide association (GWA) studies involving 30?000–40?000 samples in the discovery stage identified a total of 13 independent loci significantly associated with BP in populations of European descent.