Essential Hypertension

Abstract

There is strong evidence that essential hypertension is a hereditary disorder. The evidence is threefold: 1. There is a strong liability to hypertension in the first degree relatives of patients with severe essential hypertension. 2. The mean blood pressure of siblings of patients with severe essential hypertension shows a rise in middle life which is not shown by the general population. 3. Frequency distribution curves of blood pressure in middle age in siblings of patients with severe essential hypertension seem to show segregation into three phenotypes, the severely hypertensive, the moderately hypertensive, and the normal.