[Zinc and arterial pressure]

There are complex relations between zinc and arterial pressure. The mineral, which enters in the composition of zinc-enzyme "angiotensin-converting-enzyme" (ACE), takes part in arterial pressure regulation also through influences on others hormonal systems, which carry on many complex actions on circulation (glucocorticoids, catecholamines). It is frequent to find in hypertensive subjects low levels of plasmatic zinc (and high of cadmium): in "essential" hypertensive patients, particularly, it would be present a primary genetic defect leading, through transmembrane desregulation of ionic pumps, to high intracellular zinc and, secondarily, to high intracellular calcium. On the other hand, the same hypertensive process causes zinc and copper metabolism modifications, with an increase in zinc tissue concentration (opposite behaviour of copper). Moreover the plasmatic zinc reduction causes a proportional decrease of plasmatic and tissue ACE activity and arterial hypotension: zinc administration, in vitro and in vivo, clearly increases ACE action, with normalization of altered parameters due to zinc deficit.