Altered urinary excretion of human kininase activity in hypertension.

This study describes the levels of urinary kininase activity in hypertension. Urinary kininase activity in essential and secondary hypertensive patients was higher than in controls (1010.2 +/- 102.7 versus 114.4 +/- 23.1 ng destroyed bradykinin/min.; p less than 0.001). In a group of hypertensive diabetics without nephropathy kininase activity in urine was decreased (46.0 +/- 12.7 ng destroyed bradykinin/min.). This investigation shows that in hypertension urinary kininase activity reaches higher levels. An inverse correlation was found between urinary kallikrein and urinary kininase activity from essential hypertensive patients.