A beta-blocker-based antihypertensive drug program guided by age and renin.

From analyses of the effectiveness of beta-blocker monotherapy in relation to the patient's age and to pre-treatment renin determinations an antihypertensive drug program is proposed in which beta-blockers form the cornerstone. Patients with essential hypertension can be subdivided into groups with low (19%), normal (59%), or high (23%) renin sodium index. The proportion with low renin hypertension increases with age. Patients with high renin fall into two categories: younger patients with fairly mild hypertension and older pateients with more severe hypertension and signs of renal disease. The antihypertensive efficacy of beta-blocker monotherapy is best in high renin forms, good but less consistent in normal renin patients and uniformly bad in low renin hypertensives. In relation to age, beta-blockers normalized blood pressure (larger than or equal to 95 mmHg diastolic) in three-quarters of the younger than 40-year-olds, in about half of those aged 40--60 years, but in only 20% of those aged over 60 years. On this basis, it is postulated that the older patients with a low renin exhibit a relatively hypoadrenergic state while those with a normal or high renin--for a given age and elevated pressure--have a relatively increased adrenergic nervous activity. Because the beta-blockers have a potent suppressive action on the renin-angiotensin system--and, as a consequence, on angiotensin vasoconstriction, aldosterone volume expansion and central stimulatory feedback mechanisms--their antihypertensive mode of action may be linked to an important extent, though not exclusively, to renin suppression.