Deletion Allele of Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Gene Increases Risk of Essential Hypertension in Japanese Men

Background—The Framingham Study recently revealed that the homozygous deletion polymorphism of the angiotensinconverting enzyme gene (ACE DD) is associated with increased risk for essential hypertension in a male-specific manner. However, this association has not been confirmed in races other than whites. Methods and Results—Using a large number of Japanese subjects (n55014) that were randomly selected from the general population (the Suita Study), we examined the association between ACE DD and hypertension. The frequency of DD (17.1%) in hypertensive men was significantly higher (P,0.0015) than that (11.8%) in other mildly hypertensive or normotensive men, and the estimated odds prevalence for hypertension (DD vs II) was 1.75 (95% CI 1.21 to 2.53). In contrast, no significant association was confirmed in women (OR 1.17, 95% CI 0.79 to 1.72). Conclusions—Despite the lower frequency of the DD genotype in Japanese than in whites, the ACE gene polymorphism was associated with increased risk for hypertension, suggesting that this polymorphism is a mild but certain genetic risk factor for essential hypertension in men. (Circulation. 2000;101:2060-2065.)