The observation that some patients with only mild-to-moderate hypertension exhibit gross left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) similar to the inherited hypertrophic cardiomyopathies such as familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (FHC) and Friedreich's ataxia (FA) has prompted us to investigate the hypothesis that genetic factors associated with excessive myocardial hypertrophy, viz. mutations in FHC and FA genes alter the hypertrophic response of the heart to pressure overload.