Elevated interleukin-1 beta in the circulation of patients with essential hypertension before any drug therapy: a pilot study.
Immune system disturbances have been implicated in the pathogenesis of essential hypertension. The aim of this study was to determine the levels of the interleukin-1 beta and soluble interleukin-2 receptors in serum samples from 114 hypertensive patients before any drug therapy because there are no well-established data regarding these immunologic mediators in essential hypertension. We found increased levels of interleukin-1 beta in 59.6% of patients, while soluble interleukin-2 receptors were not detected. The interleukin-1 beta levels were significantly higher in patients than in healthy controls (P = 0.0001). We conclude that patients with essential hypertension have high levels of interleukin-1 beta but not indicators of cellular immune activation in their sera. Further studies are in progress in order to confirm, explain and assess the clinical utility of the above findings.
Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Ioannina, Greece.
G N
GN
Dalekos
M S
MS
Elisaf
N
N
Papagalanis
C
C
Tzallas
K C
KC
Siamopoulos
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000276:immunology*; D007375:Interleukin-1 / Q000097:blood*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010865:Pilot Projects; D015375:Receptors, Interleukin-2 / Q000032:analysis
D007375:Interleukin-1; D015375:Receptors, Interleukin-2