Hypertensive adults were treated with the diuretic hydrochlorothiazide, 25 mg/day, for four weeks; or with the angiotensin II receptor blocker candesartan, 16 mg/day for 2 weeks followed by 32 mg/day for 4 weeks. Interindividual variations in blood pressure responses and in candidate genes coding for components of systems regulating vasoconstriction and volume were measured. In addition, a panel of 500,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms genome-wide was measured in subsets of the most extreme responders and nonresponders to each drug for genome-wide association of analyses.