| Abstrakt: |
Blood pressure increases with age in men and women. Whether and how oxidative stress plays a role in mediating hypertension has been under intense study for the past 10 years. Although most animal studies have shown that oxidative stress will increase blood pressure, the clinical trials using antioxidants to treat hypertension in humans have not been successful. One theory for how oxidative stress increases blood pressure is that oxidants cause an increase in renal vasoconstriction that increases sodium and water reabsorption by the kidney. However, whether the blood pressure in males and females responds the same to increases in oxidative stress is not clear. There are several problems with regard to the study of oxidative stress: the lack of consistent measurements of oxidative stress, lack of specific inhibitors of oxidants or scavengers of reactive oxygen species, and the lack of specific, selective ways to increase oxidative stress in animal models. Problems in human studies contribute additional roadblocks to answering the questions of whether and how oxidative stress contributes to hypertension, such as genetic differences in the population, lack of power to take into consideration that men and women may respond differently to antioxidants, and lack of separation of genders in analyses of the data. This review will address these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
