Anthropological Science and the Salt‐Hypertension Hypothesis

The Salt‐Hypertension Hypothesis remains a useful general framework for evaluating the effects of genetic and nongenetic factors in the etiology of essential hypertension among salt‐sensitive subgroups. Armelagos and Maes declare the hypothesis untestable but offer no data in support of this conclusion. Alternative hypotheses such as the fetal origins hypothesis are bioculturally and historically irrelevant to African Americans while admixture linkage disequilibrium approaches rely on nineteenth‐century racial models and are of very limited use in internally heterogeneous groups. In contrast, ethnogenetic layering and phenotype segregation network analysis are non‐typological alternatives to the race model. Both computation‐assisted techniques are poised to generate more regionally specific data for identifying population substructure, variability in response to hypertension risk factors, and potential intervention strategies in vulnerable subgroups.