Angiotensinogen gene variation associated with variation in blood pressure in aboriginal Canadians

We measured blood pressure and related clinical phenotypes in 497 adult native Canadians from an isolated community in Northern Ontario. We analyzed their DNA for genotypes of angiotensinogen. We found that the frequency of the T235 variant of the angiotensinogen gene was 0.89 in this sample. This variant was associated with a significantly increased systolic pressure but not diastolic pressure. We also found that sex and body mass were each highly significantly associated with variation in both systolic and diastolic pressures. We found a significant association between age and variation in systolic pressure but not diastolic pressure. We also found a highly significant association between plasma apolipoprotein B concentration and variation in diastolic pressure but not systolic pressure. The high frequency of the angiotensinogen T235 variant suggests that subjects in this young, essentially normotensive population might be predisposed to hypertension, which may become more apparent in the presence of secondary factors.