An incomplete inhibition of the renin angiotensin aldosterone system (RAAS) may be responsible for the residual organ damage and event rate that still occur in spite of an apparent blood pressure control in patients with hypertension, diabetes, chronic kidney disease and heart failure treated with angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEI) or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARB). Additional antiproteinuric effect in diabetic and non diabetic chronic kidney disease, and reduction in hospitalizations in patients with heart failure already receiving a single RAAS antagonist, has been achieved by incremental inhibition of the RAAS with dual therapy or uptitration of an individual agent above conventional dosages. However, the synergistic increase in plasma renin activity (PRA) and the angiotensin II escape could reduce the expected benefit obtained with dual therapy. Results from ONTARGET showing a lack of additional outcome benefit over monotherapy, with a concomitant increase risk of hyperkalemia, renal impairment, and hypotension, discourage the use of the ACEI/ARB combination in patients at high risk of cardiovascular events. This occured despite a lower albumin excretion in dual versus single RAAS blockade, indicating that an incremental antiproteinuric effect is not automatically translated into clinical outcome benefit. The efficacy and safety of ACEI/ARB combination versus monotherapy in patients with overt proteinuria is currently evaluated by LIRICO and VA NEPHRON-D clinical trials. The long lasting direct renin inhibitor aliskiren, acting at the first and rate limiting step of the RAAS cascade, prevents the reactive increase in PRA when combined with ACEIs, ARBs or diuretics. The ASPIRE HIGHER programme, involving more than 35,000 patients with hypertension, heart failure, kidney disease and diabetes, is currently evaluating the efficacy and safety of aliskiren on top of standard therapy. The clinical benefit of adding mineralocorticoid receptor blockers (MRBs) in the control of resistant hypertension, proteinuric kidney diseases, and prevention of mortality in patients with heart failure on top of conventional treatment, evidences the pathogenic role of inadequately suppressed aldosterone as a cause of suboptimal response to conventional RAAS inhibition. The present review will focus on the pathophysiological ground, and the evidence provided by clinical trials assessing the efficacy and safety of recent strategies for the prevention of cardiovascular events and target organ damage progression via enhanced RAAS inhibition.

Arterial hypertension and transplantation are closely linked, and its association may promote impaired graft and overall survival. Since the introduction of calcineurin inhibitors, it is observed in 50–80% of transplanted patients. However, many pathophysiological mechanisms are involved in its genesis. In this review, we intend to provide an updated overview of these mechanisms, dealing with the causes common to all kinds of transplantation and emphasizing special cases with distinct features, and to give a perspective on the pharmacological approach, in order to help clinicians in the management of this frequent complication.

This study investigates whether an increased brachial pulse pressure (PP) in young healthy men constitutes a representative measure of the central hemodynamic forces, or the mere expression of an e...

Background:. The present study compares the relationships between mean arterial pressure (MAP) and pulse pressure (PP) in young and older men and wheth

Postprandial hypotension, defined as a fall in systolic blood pressure (SBP) of 20 mmHg or greater within 2 hours after a meal, is a risk factor for stroke, coronary events and mortality. The clinical suspicion is typically raised by episodes of postprandial syncope or falls, whereas asymptomatic postprandial hypotension is mostly neglected. The magnitude of the postprandial fall in SBP, as detected by 24-hour recording in apparently healthy middle-aged to elderly subjects, was proportional to the severity of the silent cerebrovascular damage. Postprandial hypotension can also be detected by self-measured blood pressure before and within 2 hours after meals using automatic devices. The review highlights the value of home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM) as a screening test for asymptomatic postprandial hypotension in hypertensive patients. Using a HBPM protocol that included duplicated blood pressure measurements before and after three consecutive lunches, we detected unsuspected postprandial hypotension in 27.4% of the 230 hypertensive patients screened. The prevalence of postprandial hypotension was 13.2% in controlled and 42.2% in uncontrolled hypertensive patients (p < 0.001), raising the dilemma of further lowering blood pressure in the setting of postprandial hypotension. The inclusion of preprandial and postprandial measurements in the protocol of HBPM is useful to identify hypertensive patients with postprandial hypotension and may guide adjustments in antihypertensive treatment according to postprandial blood pressure.

Our purpose was to determine the level of awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension in a population of subjects aged 65 or more. We studied a