Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors in cardiovascular and renal disease in Africans: a review.

The discovery and clinical availability of ACE inhibitor drugs is a triumph of rational drug development and a land-mark in biochemical pharmacology and hypertension research. The clinical pharmacological properties and haemodynamics of the clinically available drugs, captopril and enalapril, are reviewed, as is their therapeutic efficacy in African patients with essential and renal hypertension and chronic congestive heart failure. ACE inhibitors act as balanced arteriolar vasodilators and venular dilators and do not excite a reflex tachycardia in contrast to other vasodilator drugs. Their efficacy is, at least in part, dependent on plasma renin activity, which is low in Blacks and in Africans. Consistent with this, is the poor response to ACE inhibitor monotherapy of essential hypertension in controlled studies in Africans. However, the compensatory neuroendocrine activation which occurs in malignant hypertension, renal failure and congestive heart failure and concurrent diuretic therapy appears to enhance the clinical response to ACE inhibitors in African patients.