Nevertheless, for these reasons, we excluded patients with recent hypertensive crisis or other comorbidities which could bias our results, such as chronic diseases, diabetes, acute infections, smoking, etc. Finally, an additional group of patients treated with CCBs and/or diuretics would help in the delineation of effects attributable to ACE inhibitors with respect to serum catestatin concentrations. The gene discussed is ACE; the disease is diabetes mellitus.