title: Reducing pulse pressure in hypertension may normalize small artery structure.
abstract: To investigate the relation between the small artery structure and different blood pressure parameters, spontaneously hypertensive rats were treated from 4 to 24 weeks of age (20 weeks in total) with five different antihypertensive therapies: two angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (perindopril and captopril), a calcium antagonist (isradipine), a beta-blocker (metoprolol), and a vasodilator (hydralazine). At 24 weeks of age, 24-hour blood pressure was measured, and two mesenteric resistance vessels were taken from each animal. Blood pressure was 227/135 mm Hg (systolic/diastolic) and 161/106 mm Hg in untreated hypertensive and normotensive control rats, respectively. Heart rates were 376 min-1 and 295 min-1 for the two strains. All treatments reduced all blood pressure parameters except for metoprolol, which did not reduce pulse pressure. In the small arteries, the media cross-sectional area was unaffected by the treatments. When a simple correlation analysis was made, pulse pressure was found to correlate more closely (r = 0.64, p less than 0.001) to the resistance vessel media/lumen ratio than any of the other pressure parameters studied: systolic (r = 0.51, p = 0.011), mean (r = 0.41, p = 0.05), or diastolic (r = 0.28, p = 0.19). When an analysis of covariance was performed that included pulse pressure, mean blood pressure, and heart rate, which also correlated significantly to the media/lumen ratio, 81% of the variation in the media/lumen ratio could be accounted for by the variation in the three covariates (p less than 10(-5)), pulse pressure being the major factor.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
authors.affiliation: Biophysics Institute, University of Aarhus, Denmark.
authors.forename: K L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Christensen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000959:Antihypertensive Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D001158:Arteries / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000187:drug effects; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000187:drug effects; D002216:Captopril / Q000627:therapeutic use; D004095:Dihydropyridines / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006339:Heart Rate; D006830:Hydralazine / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006973:Hypertension / Q000188:drug therapy; D007211:Indoles / Q000627:therapeutic use; D017275:Isradipine; D008297:Male; D008790:Metoprolol / Q000627:therapeutic use; D020913:Perindopril; D011674:Pulse / Q000187:drug effects*; D051381:Rats; D011918:Rats, Inbred SHR; D011921:Rats, Inbred WKY; D012044:Regression Analysis
chemical_list: D000959:Antihypertensive Agents; D004095:Dihydropyridines; D007211:Indoles; D006830:Hydralazine; D002216:Captopril; D008790:Metoprolol; D020913:Perindopril; D017275:Isradipine