engleski

Prevalence of Hypertension and Family Aggregation of Blood Pressure in Middle Dalmatia, Croatia

Isolated, particularly island populations are gaining an increased interest in genetic studies because of expectedly reduced number of potential genes having a pronounced role in the determination of complex traits. The populations inhabiting Middle Dalmatian islands are relatively isolated and inbred populations sharing a rather homogenous environment (climate, nutrition habits, life style, etc.) which makes them a very promising target for genetic investigations. The analysis of blood pressure family data encompassing 1, 040 individuals, inhabitants of the islands of Brač, Hvar, Korčula and Vis (Middle Dalmatia, Croatia) have been performed. The results suggested higher heritability of diastolic blood pressure compared to the systolic: h2DIA = 44%, h2SYS = 24% (age & sex adjusted data), and the same relation remained after adjustment for morphology (h2DIA = 29%, h2SYS = 13%) and additionally for smoking habits (h2DIA = 25%, h2SYS = 10%). The obtained results combined with the information on high prevalence of developed hypertension (37.2%) observed in the Middle Dalmatian island populations, especially with the phenomenon of rather high prevalence of isolated diastolic hypertension (13.1%) with a trend to be increasingly higher as the island gets more distant from the mainland (and consequently, more isolated and more inbred) point to the adequacy of further genetic investigations of blood pressure in those populations.

genetic epidemiology; prevalence; blood pressure; hypertension; Middle Dalmatia; Croatia

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