Plasma rennin activity in the African hypertensives

Abstract

Early reports, particularly from East Africa, concerning surveys of arterial pressures in Africans showed hypertension as an unusual event in the indigenous population (Donnison, 1929; Vint, 1937). This impression has in the last two decades been gradually dispelled and it is now known that hypertension is at least as common in African population as it is in the Caucasian. (William 1944, Callander 1953, Uys 1956, Schrine 1959, Abrahams and Alele 1960, Shaper and Williams 1961, Binder 1961, Smith 1966, Akinkugbe, 0.0. 1968). The etiology of essential hypertension remains largely unknown, but most workers tend to agree with Sir George Peckering who says that, “Like other measurable characters of the higher animals, arterial pressure is determined by the interaction of nature and nurture, heredity and environment”. For instance hypertension is a very rare event in the Gilbert Islands, and genetic factors have been advanced to explain this curiosity. On the other hand arterial hypertension is rampant in Northern Japan, and the possible explanation, has been too much salt consumed at table.