The patients and controls will be recruited at the Hypertension research center of Federico II university hospital.~The overall duration of the study will be 4 weeks for each participant. Blood pressure, heart rate, echocardiogram and blood sample will be collected for each patients at randomization and after 4 weeks of treatment.~Patients or controls will be randomized to receive bioarginine (up to 2 vials per os of 1.66 g every 12 hours) or placebo (up to 2 vials per os without active substance every 12 hours). Before the start of treatment, patients will receive a peripheral venous blood sample (10-12 ml), which will be identified through the use of an alphanumeric code (PRE-XXXYYY). In addition, patients will undergo full echocardiographic examination (the parameters will be reported in a password-protected database, using the same identification codes used for blood sampling). The duration of the treatment will be 4 weeks. At the end of the treatment, the patients will receive a peripheral venous blood sample (10-12 ml) which will be identified through the use of an alphanumeric code (POST-XXXYYY) and full echocardiographic examination.~In some controls, we will run an explorative study to verify the eventual impact of Bioarginine on standardized physical exercise. Healthy controls will undergo a physical exercise according to their preference, at baseline and after 4 weeks of treatment or placebo. Ear lobe blood samples are taken before and after the effort and analyzed for serum lactate content using the reflectance photometric enzymatic reaction method. All L-arginine and placebo, made up of the L-arginine vehicle without the active substance, will be offered free of charge by the Farmaceutici DAMOR company.
The study is designed to evaluate the effects of L-arginine on myocardial structure and function and circulating microRNAs in patients with arterial hypertension.~The study will analyze the impact of 4 weeks treatment randomized to L-arginine or placebo, on mechanical-energy efficiency (MEE) and longitudinal strain in patients with arterial hypertension. The investigators will also assess whether the changes in MEE and strain induced by L-arginine treatment is associated with changes in circulating micro RNAs.