Altered urinary excretion of human kininase activity in hypertension.

: This study describes the levels of urinary kininase activity in hypertension. Urinary kininase activity in essential and secondary hypertensive patients was higher than in controls (1010.2 +/- 102.7 versus 114.4 +/- 23.1 ng destroyed bradykinin/min.; p less than 0.001). In a group of hypertensive diabetics without nephropathy kininase activity in urine was decreased (46.0 +/- 12.7 ng destroyed bradykinin/min.). This investigation shows that in hypertension urinary kininase activity reaches higher levels. An inverse correlation was found between urinary kallikrein and urinary kininase activity from essential hypertensive patients.