[Development of hypertension and cataract in spontaneously hypertensive rats]

The investigations were performed on 3 groups of untreated, spontaneously hypertensive Wistar rats of the Okamoto line. All the rats in Group I developed arterial hypertension within 16 weeks of birth and 33 percent of them developed cataracts within 22 weeks. Reserpine application suppressed hypertension and cataract development in all the animals in Group II. After unilateral adrenalectomy and contralateral adrenal enucleation (Group III), hypertension and cataracts developed in both treated and untreated animals; in the former, however, blood pressure was about 10 percent higher and cataracts developed about 6 weeks earlier than in the untreated rats. These findings support the hypothesis that arterial hypertension may be involved in cataract development.