ANGIOTENSIN-CONVERTING ENZYME GENE POLYMORPHISM IN NEPAL

It has recently been found that there were very few hypertensives in t he inhabitants of one Nepalese village, even though their salt consump tion, per capita, was as high as citizens in many western countries. T o evaluate the genetic factors involved in this phenomenon, we studied whether they had a special genotype distribution of angiotensin-conve rting enzyme (ACE) gene I/D polymorphism, which was recently reported to be involved in salt sensitivity. One hundred and thirty-eight subje cts were evaluated in Nepal. Only nine subjects (6.5%) in this populat ion were hypertensives lover 140/90 mm Hg) while consuming 11 g salt/d ay, which confirmed the previous results. The distribution of genotype s and alleles of ACE gene I/D polymorphism was similar to that in the Japanese and Chinese, who had five-times more hypertensives while cons uming almost as much salt as Nepalese, but significantly different fro m those in Caucasians. The present study reports, for the first time, the genotype distribution of ACE gene VD polymorphism in Nepalese subj ects. Furthermore, the results suggest ACE gene polymorphism may not b e involved in the 'salt-resistance' in this population.