Correlations between serum zinc concentrations and oxygen balance parameters in patients with primary arterial hypertension.

It has been postulated that increased blood pressure is related to hypersensitivity of arterial chemoreceptors and increased tissue oxygen supply. Arterial blood pressure has been found to be negatively correlated to serum zinc and positively correlated to age, body mass index, and hemoglobin concentrations. The aim of the present investigation was to further explore the relationship between blood pressure and zinc concentrations in serum and blood morphology parameters, iron concentrations, and venous blood gasometry parameters. The study was carried out in two groups. Group Aconsisted of 23 subjects of both sexes suffering from moderate to severe arterial blood pressure. Their mean age was 53.13+/-10.45 yr (range: 23-74 yr). Group B included 48 subjects of mean age 36.7+/-10.0 yr (range: 26-60 yr). This group included 5 patients with arterial hypotension, 37 with hypertension, and the remaining 6 with normal blood pressure. Significant positive correlations between serum zinc and red blood cell count (r = 0.51) and negative with age (r = -0.52) were found. By multiple regression, negative correlations were also found between serum zinc and the diastolic blood pressure and with hemoglobin (r = -0.5). Age was positively correlated to systolic (r = 0.49) and diastolic (r = 0.45) blood pressure parameters and to hemoglobin concentrations (r = 0.33 and r = 0.38, respectively). Buffered and excess bases in blood were negatively correlated to zinc (r = -0.29 in both cases) and to systolic and diastolic blood pressure (r = -0.31 and r = -0.40, respectively). In turn, the systolic and diastolic blood pressure also correlated negatively to the partial pressure of carbon dioxide and positively to venous blood oxygen saturation and to the partial pressure of oxygen. The role of zinc and acid-balance realtionships in blood pressure regulation and in arterial hypertension ethiopatogenesis is disscused.