Аннотация:Nowadays hypertension can be actually called a ‘social scourge, for it affects 10-15% of World’s population and leads to serious complications. It’s not a secret that men are generally at greater risk for hypertension than are age-matched premenopausal women. The phenomenon has been generally explained by protective effects of estrogen on vasculature (Orshal&Khalil, 2004; Mendelsohn&Karas, 1999). But recent experimental data suggests that it is not positive action of female hormones but rather negative action of testosterone can lead to pathological changes in the vasculature (Reckelhoff et al., 2000; Song et al., 2004).
Spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) is the most commonly used model of human established hypertension, they have a great advantage of lack of inter-individual variations, which are present in people. It has been previously shown, that gonadectomy and antiandrogen treatment lead to significant reduction of blood pressure in male SHR rats (Reckelhoff et al., 2000; Capela et al., 2001). Yet changes in cardiovascular functions and regulation that might be either cause or consequence of this phenomenon haven’t been yet elucidated.