Commentary

Blood pressure demographics: nature or nurture ... ... genes or environment?

Joseph Tomson and Gregory YH Lip

University Department of Medicine, City Hospital, Birmingham B18 7QH, England, UK

author email corresponding author email

BMC Medicine 2005, 3:3doi:10.1186/1741-7015-3-3

Published:	7 January 2005

Abstract

Hypertension is a growing worldwide problem associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. However, the rates of prevalence of hypertension are higher in some populations than others. Although ethnic and genetic factors have been implied in the past to explain this, the environmental influence and psychosocial factors may play a more important role than is widely accepted. Examining the non-genetic influences in future hypertension research may be necessary in order to clearly define the local blood pressure demographics and the global hypertensive disease burden.