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(Hypertension. 2005;46:23.)
© 2005 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorial Commentaries

Left Ventricular Hypertrophy in Blacks and Whites

Different Genes or Different Exposure?

Giovanni de Simone

From the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Federico II University, Naples, Italy.

Reprint requests to Dr Giovanni de Simone, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Federico II University Hospital, v. S. Pansini 5, 80131 Napoli, Italy. E-mail simogi@unina.it

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

The evidence that blacks carry greater left ventricular (LV) mass than whites is almost indisputable, as recently confirmed by new epidemiological findings and analysis of previous literature.^1,2 There are only a few studies denying this ethnic difference, a finding possibly attributable to selection of participants and distribution of risk factors.² The conclusion that LV mass is greater in blacks than in whites is now confirmed by a new epidemiological study using a different (and possibly more accurate) method to calculate LV mass, with MRI at high magnetic field.³ It is relevant that the criteria for definition of MRI LV hypertrophy derived from analysis of normal population-specific distribution are not substantially different from those derived from distribution criteria in echocardiographic studies using 2D-targeted M-mode tracing, especially in men:^4,5 111 g/m² in men (versus 112 g/m² with MRI) and 106 g/m² in women (versus 89 g/m² with MRI), a gender difference that might reflect differences in ethnicity and body size distribution. The consistence of findings obtained using different methods (ultrasound and MRI) further increases the confidence that according to the present predictive models, ethnicity is an independent contributor to LV mass; but how much variability can be explained primarily by ethnicity remains to be clarified.

In a recent article from the HyperGEN network, Kizer et al¹ reported that LV mass remained greater in 1060 hypertensive black individuals than in 580 white participants, even after adjusting for sex, body build, blood pressure (BP), diabetes, duration of hypertension, and antihypertensive treatment. However, even in . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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Left Ventricular Hypertrophy Is More Prevalent in Blacks Than Whites in the General Population: The Dallas Heart Study

Mark H. Drazner, Daniel L. Dries, Ronald M. Peshock, Richard S. Cooper, Chris Klassen, Farhana Kazi, DuWayne Willett, and Ronald G. Victor
Hypertension 2005 46: 124-129. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]