An autoimmune response to heat shock proteins can trigger high blood pressure in a subset of individuals with essential hypertension.

“this inflammatory reaction can actually be an autoimmune reaction and we've even identified certain proteins that there's an autoimmune response too and one is a heat shock protein you can actually create high blood pressure in animals by inducing an immune response to this and you can block the immune response and block the high blood pressure and and now there's even data showing that in humans that there's evidence for an autoimmune response to heat shock proteins in people with essential hypertension”