A genetic link between stress and blood pressure

There’s a lot of evidence that stress plays a role in cardiovascular disease but the mechanisms linking the two are only now starting to be understood. Now an interesting study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation points to a genetic connection between stress and high blood pressure. Part of the body’s natural response to stress is an increase in blood pressure due to vasoconstriction or tightening of the blood vessels. This is rooted in our primeval fight or flight mechanism.

Phosducin, or PDC, is a gene that is expressed in the retina, the central nervous system, and the pineal gland. It regulates a protein involved in cardiovascular function, so the researchers thought it might have involvement in blood pressure. To find out for sure, they followed a two-step process. First, they compared the blood pressure of two lines of mice under conditions of stress. One line of mice had the PDC gene was deleted and the other was known as wild type, with no induced genetic changes. Even though the cardiovascular system in the two lines was the same, the mice without the PDC gene had much higher blood pressure than the other mice when they were stressed.

The second step was to look at differences in the PDC gene in two populations and if it affects blood pressure. Comparing a group of African-Americans with a group of French Canadians, the researchers found that a particular variation of the PDC gene was linked with significantly elevated blood pressure.
 

• ‹ previous
• 27 of 29
• next ›