Svetkey LP, McKeown S, Wilson AF
Heritability of salt sensitivity in African American
families
11th Scientific Meeting, American Society of Hypertension
Am J Hypert
(Apr) 9:66A 1996
It is well known that African Americans with hypertension are salt
sensitive as compared to other American ethnic groups. This has been
the subject of intense investigation. Recent studies have focused on
various candidate genes that control hypertension and salt
sensitivity.
To assess heritability of salt sensitivity, Svetkey et al evaluated a
large cohort of African American families with hypertensive probands.
Salt sensitivity was determined in both normotensive and hypertensive
cohorts by the difference in blood pressure between intravenous salt
loading and salt depletion (lasix). In twenty families comprising 30
parent offspring pairs and 115 adult sibling pairs, correlations
between parent-offspring and sib-sib were calculated. In addition a
Heritability estimate was determined. They found significant
correlations between mean, systolic and diastolic blood pressures for
both parent-offspring and sib-sib.
Comment: The results are consistent with the hypothesis that
salt sensitivity is a heritable phenotype in hypertensive
African-Americans. This study provides further evidence that salt
sensitivity is a genetically determined phenotype and that blood
pressure control in this patient population is likely to improve with
therapy directed at modulating the expression of salt sensitivity in
addition to environmental influences (dietary salt intake). Further
studies of dietary sodium loading in this patient population would be
useful for achieving this goal.
(Robert D. Toto, M.D., University of Texas Southwestern Medical
Center)
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11th Scientific Meeting, American Society of Hypertension
H: Special problems :
Ethnic populations
H: Pathophysiology :
Salt (sodium, chloride) sensitivity