Research Article Relationship between Plasma Aldosterone Levels and Left Ventricular Mass in Hypertensive Africans

Copyright © 2013 Adewole Adebiyi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background.Hypertension is the most common cardiovascular disease worldwide and is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Studies have suggested that the activity of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system play a major role in the target organ damage such as left ventricular hypertrophy occuring in hypertension. We sought to determine the relationship between plasma aldosterone and left ventricular mass in untreated African hypertensives.Methods.We recruited 82 newly diagnosed and untreated hypertensives and 51 normal controls. Measurements obtained included echocardiographic LV mass index, plasma aldosterone and renin. Results.The hypertensive subjects had lower renin levels (21.03[6.974] versus 26.66[7.592] ng.mL−1