ABSTRACT
The increasing ethnic diversity of the European and extra-European populations will challenge the abilities of medical professionals to deal with diseases specific for particular ethnicities but also, more importantly, with highly prevalent chronic morbid conditions that might differ by presentation in different ethnic groups. Ethnicity has been reported to influence prevalence of hypertension, cardiovascular risk and hypertension-related organ damage. African Americans do have a greater increase in blood pressure for a given exposure to dietary sodium and have a greater frequency of salt sensitivity compared with European Americans. Lifestyle modification is particularly important in blacks and Hispanic Americans for prevention and first-line or adjunctive therapy of hypertension. In black hypertensive patients, compared with hypertension in other ethnicities, the disorder in often more severe, more resistant to treatment, and leads to earlier end-organ damage and premature death. Hypertension seems to be a more aggressive disease in patients of African ancestry.
