This incidence of hypertension is particularly high in African American women as demonstrated in the ARIC study. The ARIC cohort consisted of 14,026 black and white men and women 45 to 64 years of age (2,298 of whom were black women) with no prior history of myocardial infarction or stroke at baseline. The study included four separate communities in the United States between 1987-1997 and included 7-10 years of follow-up. Results of this study revealed that although traditional risk factors for coronary disease were similar in both black and whites, hypertension was a particularly strong risk factor in black women. (16) This finding was also found in the NHANES Epidemiologic follow-up study. NHANES I , a longitudinal study of over 14,000 black and white persons aged 25 to 74 years conducted between 1982 and 1992 revealed that elevated systolic blood pressure and smoking in black women were predictive of coronary heart disease. (5) Left ventricular hypertrophy often coexists with hypertension. LVH is a known complication of hypertension and is an independent risk factor for the development of CHD (17).