AIM  To study the correlation between renin, aldosterone levels and short-term blood pressure variability in young and middle-aged patients with essential hypertension.

METHODS A total of 192 patients with essential hypertension diagnosed in the Gansu Provincial People’s Hospital from July 2020 to December 2022 were analyzed retrospectively. Renal function, uric acid, blood lipids, fasting blood glucose, glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), orthostatic plasma renin concentration and aldosterone concentration levels were detected and blood pressure was measured by 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. According to the median aldosterone/renin concentration (ARR) (ARR=11.81), 96 patients were assigned to high ARR group (>ARR median) and 96 patients were assigned to low ARR group (<ARR median). The relationship between ARR and blood pressure variability (BPV) was compared between the two groups.

RESULTS There was no difference in renin concentration between the two groups. The level of aldosterone in the high ARR group was significantly higher than that in the low ARR group (P<0.01). There was no difference between the 24 hour DBPCV, dSBPCV, and dDBPCV groups, but the 24 hour SBPCV in the high ARR group was higher than that in the low ARR group (P<0.05), and the nSBPCV and nDBPCV in the high ARR group were significantly higher than those in the low ARR group (all P<0.01). Pearson correlation analysis showed that ARR was correlated with both nSBPCV and nDBPCV (r=0.264, P<0.01; r=0.169, P<0.05); Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that nSBPCV was a risk factor for ARR (P<0.05).

CONCLUSION There is a correlation between ARR and nSBPCV in young and middle-aged patients with essential hypertension. The plasma aldosterone levels is one of the risk factors for the increase of nSBPCV.