The prevalence of essential hypotention was cross-Sectionally surveyed among 58, 000 adult workers in the Tokyo metropolitan area, and differences in hemodynamics were analyzed between hypotensive patients with subjective symptoms and those who were asymptomatic. The overall prevalence of hypotension, defined as a systolic blood pressure of less than 100 mmHg, was 8.9%. By sex, the prevalence was 1.4% in males and 14.7% in females. Males were thus outnumbered by females by ratio of 1:10. The prevalence of essential hypotension, accounting for 74.7% of all forms of essential hypotension, was 6.7%. By age, the prevalence of essential hypotension was high in the younger age groups and decreased with age. One or more of subjective symptoms out of seven symptoms prepared were observed in 27 .5% of all the essential hypotensive patients. By sex, the prevalence of subjective symptoms was higher in females (28.3%) than in males (20.0%). The prevalence of symptoms tended to increase with age, but declined after the sixth age decade. The prevalence of symptoms in essential hypotensive patients was significantly higher than that in normotesive subjects and patients with borderline to definitive hypertension . The main symptoms in essential hypotensive patients were general malaise/ fatigue (14.6%), vertigo and dizziness (8.5%), and headache/forgetfulness (6.9%). The prevalence of the these three major complaints declined with a rise in blood pressure, suggesting their usefulness in the diagnosis of hypotension. Hemodynamic variables were compared in the group of hypotensive patients with symptoms versus that without symptoms. Although there were no intergroup differences in supine hemodynamics, the group with symptoms showed a classical hypotonic form of orthostatic dysregulation, corresponding to the?gdysdynamische Syndrome?hof the classification of Deilus, in the tiliting test. The prevalence of small hearts did not differ between the two groups.
