Heredity May Play Substantial Role In Pre-Hypertension.

MedPage Today  (6/5, Baron-Faust) reports, "Heredity appears to play a substantial role in pre-hypertension -- a risk factor for high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and death -- according to a large cross-sectional study  of identical and nonidentical twins and their siblings and family members." Researchers "found that trait heritability affected systolic pressures by about 44.6% (P≤0.001) but not diastolic pressures, while impacting plasma norepinephrine by around 65.2% (P≤0.001), and heart rate by approximately 62.2% (P≤0.001)." The investigators "also found trait heritability for other hemodynamic factors, such as cardiac index of around 60.5%, and 57.3%, for systemic vascular resistance index (P≤0.001 for both), with lesser associations for other factors, such as left ventricular pressure changes over time, they reported in the June issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology."