Plasma asymmetric dimethylarginine and L-arginine levels in Chinese patients with essential hypertension without coronary artery disease.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the plasma asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) levels and L-arginine in the essential hypertension (EH) patients without coronary artery disease.


METHODS
A total of 86 Chinese patients were enrolled in this study. All patients received coronary multidetector-row computed tomography to exclude distinct coronary stenosis and treadmill exercise testing to exclude microvascular angina pectoris. The patients with normal blood pressure (n = 26) were set as the control group. The EH patients were divided into three subgroups: the prehypertension group (n = 26), the stage 1 hypertension group (n = 26) and the stage 2 hypertension group (n = 8). The plasma ADMA and L-arginine concentrations were measured by a validated high-throughput liquid chromatographic tandem mass spectrometric assay.


RESULTS
There was a significantly higher ADMA level [0.028 (0.016) mmol/L vs. 0.021 (0.010) mmol/L, P = 0.002] and lower L-arginine to ADMA ratio [1.42 (0.58) vs. 2.01 (0.99), P < 0.001] in the EH group compared with the control group. Among the EH patients, the ADMA levels were increased by grades of hypertension [0.028 (0.011) mmol/L, 0.027 (0.014) mmol/L, 0.035 (0.024) mmol/L, respectively, P < 0.001]. The ADMA level was independently related to the systolic blood pressure (r = 1.047, P = 0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
The plasma ADMA levels were significantly elevated with grades of hypertension in EH patients and were positively related to the systolic blood pressure levels.
The First affiliated Hospital of Bengbu Medical College, Bengbu City, Anhui Province, China.
Hongju
H
Wang
Jun
J
Liu