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Madrid, 11 sep (EFE).-an international group of researchers, which involves Spanish scientists, has identified 16 new genetic characteristics associated with the risk of hypertension in population of origin European.

The results of this research are published in two separate articles in the journals Nature and Nature Genetics.

These 16 new genetic traits are joining 13 others already known.

“Have been identified 16 new DNA zones associated with a greater chance of presenting figures high blood pressure, so that we know at present 29 associated with this disease,” recounts Roberto Elosua and Gavin Lucas, of the research group on epidemiology and cardiovascular genetics of the Institute’s Research Hospital del Mar (IMIM), in Barcelona.

The effect of each of these “risk characteristics” is very small, but the risk increases as to accumulate these variants genetic in a person.

29 Genetic variants known so far are in turn related to the risk of developing ventricular hypertrophy (cardiac disease consisting of an increase in the thickness of the heart muscle), stroke or cerebral accident and myocardial infarction.

Greater number of these genetic features of risk of hypertension, more likely to have stroke and myocardial infarction, according to researchers from two separate studies.

However, scientists claim that one of the “most striking results” is that these variants are not associated with the presence of renal failure, “suggesting that hypertension is a result but not a cause of renal pathology”.

Hypertension is a chronic disease characterized by an increase in continuous blood in the arteries, pressure recalls the Catalan in a press note Institute

Is known that genetic factors explain a “significant” part of the risk of hypertension, that is why, according to the IMIM, “many efforts” are investing to identify genetic characteristics linked to this pathology.

To carry out these works, which opens the door to research on new therapeutic targets for the control of hypertension, has analyzed more than 200,000 people. EFE