Antihypertensive treatments obscure familial contributions to blood pressure variation

Abstract

The linkage and association between inherent blood pressure and underlying genotype is potentially confounded by antihypertensive treatment. We estimated blood pressure variance components (genetic, shared environmental, individual-specific) in 767 adult volunteer families by using a variety of approaches to adjusting blood pressure of the 244 subjects (8.2%) receiving antihypertensive medications. The additive genetic component of variance for systolic pressure was 73.9 mm Hg(2) (SE, 8.8) when measured pressures (adjusted for age by gender within each generation) were used but fell to 61.4 mm Hg(2) (SE, 8.0) when treated subjects were excluded. When the relevant 95th percentile values were ..