ABSTRACT
Hypertension is a common trait affecting 50 million Americans and contrib uting to over 200,000 deaths annually from myocardial infarction, stroke, and end-stage renal disease. Despite intensive physiological investigation, the primary determinants o f hypertension remain unknown in the overwhelming majority o f affected individuals. Major reasons for this include recognition that hypertension is not a single disease with a single cause in all affected subjects. Moreover, the complex interplay of different physiological systems regulating blood pressure has made it difficult to determine whether physiological abnormalities found in hypertensive patients are primary contributors to the hypertensive process, or mere secondary consequences o f the true, and elusive, primary causes. A consequence of this ignorance is that our therapeu tic approach to this disease is necessarily empiric, and not directed toward underlying primary abnormalities.
