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(Hypertension. 2000;36:731.)
© 2000 American Heart Association, Inc.

Rapid Communications

Association of the Human Y Chromosome With High Blood Pressure in the General Population

Justine A. Ellis; Margaret Stebbing; Stephen B. Harrap

From the Department of Physiology, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Correspondence to Prof Stephen B. Harrap, Department of Physiology, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia. E-mail s.harrap{at}physiology.unimelb.edu.au

Genetic variation in the Y chromosome has significant effects on male blood pressure in experimental animals, but the effects in humans are unknown. We examined the relationship between blood pressure and a polymorphic HindIII restriction site in the nonrecombining region of the Y chromosome in 409 randomly selected men from the general population. Carefully standardized measures of systolic and diastolic blood pressures were made. The HindIII restriction site was significantly more common (43.2%) in men in the lowest decile of the diastolic blood pressure distribution than men in the highest decile (15.9%, P=0.007). No significant difference in genotype frequency was observed between the lowest and highest deciles for systolic pressure (32.4% versus 27.8%, P=0.66). In the entire group, men with the HindIII restriction site had significantly lower diastolic blood pressures (81.2 mm Hg, SD:8.3, versus 83.2 mm Hg, SD:8.7, P=0.03). No significant differences in systolic blood pressure (130.6 mm Hg, SD:14.7, versus 128.3 mm Hg, SD: 13.6) were observed in relation to genotypes. Our results indicate that genetic variation in the human Y chromosome is associated with high blood pressure and contributes significantly to the quantitative variation of male diastolic blood pressure in the general population.

Key Words: gender • hypertension, genetic • risk factors • genetics

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