Concistrè A, Petramala L, Bisogni V, et al. - Researchers examined patients with essential hypertension in order to assess some surrogate markers of subclinical atherosclerosis, such as carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT), ankle-brachial index (ABI) and biochemical parameters in correlation with plasma aldosterone concentration (PAC). Participants were 804 patients who were consecutively enrolled, including 407 men and 397 women, with mean age 50 ± 14 years. Findings revealed a strong association of higher PAC values with some metabolic variables, like triglycerides, urinary albumin excretion, cIMT, worse ABI and major prevalence of carotid plaques that, combined with high blood pressure values, were found to have a strict correlation with a higher risk of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular complications.