Three hundred and seventy subjects (217 women and 153 men) affected by essential hypertension of moderate or severe degree were studied. Their age ranged from 28 to 57 years, with a mean of 47 years. 251 patients had a normal electrocardiogram (ECG) and 119 patients an abnormal ECG: 78 with T wave abnormalities, 4 with Q-S segment abnormalities, 9 with left bundle branch block and 28 with left ventricular hypertrophy. Control group was composed by 45 non hypertensive subjects matched for age and sex. Glucose and insulin concentrations, before and after the oral glucose intake, were higher in patients with essential hypertension than in control group. The hypertensive patients with abnormal ECG were found to have higher plasma insulin response, high triglyceride plasma levels, total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol concentrations, associated with a significant increase in the total cholesterol/HDL cholesterol ratio.

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PubMedDate not supplied

Hypertension and menopausal syndrome: effects of hormone replacement therapy and antihypertensive drugs.

Arterial hypertension is a common finding in climacteric women even though the role of reduced estrogen levels in promoting this condition remains unclear. The purpose of the present survey was to evaluate the effects of hormone replacement therapy in hypertensive postmenopausal women. 180 patients were studied; they had been postmenopausal for 12-18 months and afflicted with mild or moderate essential arterial hypertension for less than 2 years. Patients were randomly divided into two groups and treated with progestin-estrogen therapy (group I, 96 patients) or with antihypertensive drugs (group II, 84 patients). Fourty-one cases in group I (42.7%) responded adequately to hormone therapy with persistent normalization of blood pressure levels; antihypertensive drugs were effective in 61 patients in group II (72.5%). The 23 unresponsive patients in group II were subsequently treated with progestin-estrogen therapy and a normalization of pressure values was achieved in 10 of these (43.5%). These results suggest that hormonal treatment determines, in at least one third of the cases, a significant reduction in blood pressure values. Moreover, hormone replacement may be effective even in patients that have not responded to antihypertensive drugs.

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