control group with respect to age for the group of severe arterial hypertension,
because in the case of young people, we often deal with severe
arterial hypertension that is usually secondary hypertension. On the other
hand, in advanced age, many more factors interfere with zinc metabolism,
causing inadequacy of data from the eventual control group of elderly
people (10,11).
In the group of 136 patients, the following parameters were tested:
• Basic arterial pressure
• Efflux rate constants of activeness of zinc from lymphocytes:
total (ERCt-Zn) and ouabaine-dependent (ERCos-Zn)
• Serum zinc concentrations (Zn-s)
• Zinc content in lymphocytes (Zn-l)
• Serum aldosterone concentrations (Ald-s)
• Plasma renin activity (PRA)
• Serum angiotensin-converting enzyme concentrations (ACE)
• Concentration of sodium (Na-s) and potassium (K-s) in serum
• Body mass index (BMI)
• Thickness of the interventricular septum of myocardium in
diastole (IVSd)
Blood was sampled from the antebrachial basilic vein, between 8:00
AM and 10:00 AM. In the samples, the above-listed parameters were tested.
The separation of lymphocytes from the peripheral blood was conducted
by Boyum’s method (12) using Noworolska’s modification (13).
The measurement of the constant of zinc efflux was based on the method
given by Heagerty et al. (14) concerning measurement of the constant of
sodium ion efflux. Separated lymphocytes were rinsed three times in a 0.1-
mol solution of MgCl2 and were suspended in 2 mL of 0.1 mol MgCl2. The
lymphocytes extracted in this way were incubated from 65ZnCl2 to an
activity of 0.2 μCi per sample for 30 min at 37°C. After incubation, lymphocytes
were rinsed three times in a 0.1-mol solution of MgCl2 and the
sample was divided into two parts. To both samples, the same amount of
0.1 mol MgCl2 was added, and to the second sample, 0.1 mg (10–4 mol) of