[Evaluation of salt consumption, physical activity, stress, tobacco and oral contraceptives in the epidemiology of essential hypertension].

In the cross section study of a sample of 1,915 newly diagnosed cases of hypertension and 8,043 healthy individuals, a comparative analysis is made of different risk factors which can influence blood pressure counts. An association among the statistics for an excessive salt intake, stress, when the analysis is made according to age, in those over 45 years of age and regular physical exercise is shown. To the contrary, this association is not found with the use of oral contraceptives nor among the smoking population, even among those smoking over 20 cigarettes a day. For each one of these variables, the relative inequalities and their respective reliability intervals are studied. In the population studied, the factor of greatest importance is an excessive salt intake, revealing a risk twice that of diets in which no salt is added.