Objective: To examine whether the angiotensinogen M235T and angiotensin converting enzyme insertion/deletion (I/D) variants are related to the severity of hypertension in patients with established essential hypertension.
Design: A cross-sectional study.
Setting: The hypertension clinic of the Benjamin Franklin University Hospital, Free University of Berlin.
Participants: Three hundred and forty-three consecutive Caucasian patients who presented with treated or untreated (n = 115) hypertension were enrolled into the study. Twenty-two patients were excluded from analysis because they had secondary hypertension.
Main outcome measures: Angiotensinogen M235T and angiotensin-converting enzyme I/D genotypes, 24 h ambulatory blood pressure values, the number of antihypertensive medications administered and left ventricular dimensions assessed by two-dimensional echocardiography.
Results: Neither the angiotensinogen nor the angiotensin converting enzyme genotype was related significantly to the average ambulatory blood pressure and left ventricular dimensions in hypertensives. Furthermore, neither the number of antihypertensive medications administered to treated patients nor blood pressure levels in untreated patients (n = 115) differed significantly between the genotypic groups.
Conclusions: These results do not support the hypothesis that the studied molecular variants of the renin-angiotensin system may represent clinically useful markers of the severity of hypertension in Caucasians with established essential hypertension.