It has been difficult to show effects of stress on the development of hypertension because it may be that only a subset of people who show a genetic susceptibility will develop high blood pressure after chronic exposure to stress. Our research shows that effects of different candidate genes on the development of high blood pressure during adolescence depend on the environmental stressors that are present, the gender and the ethnicity, in a group of European American and African American youth that have been followed for 15 years. Harold Snieder