Hypothesis: pulse pressure and human longevity.

In exploration of the association between pulse pressure and longevity in humans, 3 hypotheses are briefly discussed: the fetal origin hypothesis, antagonistic pleiotropy, and the telomere hypothesis of cellular aging. The implications of these hypotheses serve to draw a critical distinction between biologic age (aging) and chronological age and, thereby, offer an answer to a question that presently matters most in the field of hypertension: Why has it been so difficult to disentangle the genetic components of essential hypertension and to identify the variant genes responsible for elevated blood pressure in a large segment of the human population?