The era of rapid, modern development has brought us into a life filled with a whole new range of lifestyle choices that can be made. However, these developments have led to an increase in sedentary lifestyle. Additionally, jobs have become more demanding, causing greater work-related stress. These are just some of the issues that have led to one of the biggest health consequences of evolving lifestyles, an increased prevalence of hypertension. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that one third of the adult population suffers from hypertension in the United States (Fang et al., 2013). In this essay, the problem of hypertension and the development of treatments against it will be highlighted, more specifically, the development of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors. Hypertension is known as the precursor to many major life-threatening diseases and can even lead to fatal cases of heart attacks and strokes. It does this by impeding blood flow to vital organs and increasing the amount of plaque buildup in blood vessels (Patlak, 2004). Over the years, several treatments have been developed in an attempt to address the disease. Among the drugs used to treat hypertension are diuretics, beta-blockers and calcium channel blockers (Patlak, 2004). These drugs work by inhibiting the function of certain aspects of the body involved in regulating blood pressure. For example, diuretics were developed to increase the absorption of sodium and other salts in the urine by inhibiting carbonic anhydrase (Kenny, 2014; Patlak, 2004). This reduces blood volume, therefore decreasing blood pressure (Kenny, 2014). However, diuretics have been linked to a high... half of article......14]Sweitzer, N., 2003. What is an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor? Circulation. [e-journal] 2003(108) pp. e16-e18 Available at: [Accessed May 9, 2014]Touyz, RM and Schiffrin, EL, 1997. Angiotensin II regulates pH, contraction and growth of vascular smooth muscle cells via tyrosine kinase-dependent signaling pathways . Hypertension [e-journal] 1997(30), pp.222-229 Available at: [Accessed 8 May 2014]Wolf, G., Ziyadeh, FN, Zahner G. and Stahl, RAK, 1996. Angiotensin II is mitogenic for cultured rat glomerular endothelial cells. Hypertension. [e-journal] 1996(27), pp. 897-905 Available at: [Accessed May 9 2014]