Treat Hypertension Naturally

UroToday.com - In 2006, a worrisome paper regarding the long-term effects of HM-3 shock wave lithotripsy was published by the Mayo Clinic. In that study of 578 treated patients (288 responded to the questionnaire), with 19 year follow-up matched to a control population with untreated urinary stones, a statistically significant increase in hypertension, 36% vs. 28% - and in diabetes mellitus, 17% vs. 7% was reported.1 The present study is not confirmatory.

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Consumer-driven health plans (CDHP) — hailed since their inception in 2000 as a tool to help control costs — are resulting in members forgoing care and discontinuing drugs to treat chronic medical problems, according to two newly published studies. Under employer-offered CDHPs, members pay up-front deductibles either out-of-pocket or from a dedicated health-care account before insurance coverage begins.

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New data show Exforge(R) (amlodipine and valsartan), a single-pill combination of the world’s leading high blood pressure medicines Diovan(R) (valsartan) and amlodipine, gets nearly twice as many patients with high baseline blood pressure to a healthier blood pressure goal compared to amlodipine alone.

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The air people breathe while walking in the park, working in the garden or shopping downtown may be unhealthy enough to seriously spike their blood pressure, a new study suggests. Cardiovascular researchers at The Ohio State University Medical Center are the first to report a direct link between air pollution and its impact on high blood pressure, or hypertension. If the results from these animal studies hold up, this could be important for human health.

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For the first time, a strategic plan for research into benign prostate disease, based on the latest scientific knowledge, has been published by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

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Biochemists at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston say they are the first to provide pre-clinical evidence that pregnancy-induced high blood pressure or pre-eclampsia may be an autoimmune disease. Their research could provide novel diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities for this intractable disease. Findings appear online in Nature Medicine on July 27. Scientists in the laboratory of Yang Xia, M.D., Ph.D.

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Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have, for the first time, found that angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) - a particular class of anti-hypertensive medicines - are associated with a striking decrease in the occurrence and progression of dementia. Data from this study was presented at the 2008 International Conference on Alzheimer’s disease in Chicago. Using data from the Decision Support System Database of the U.S.

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In a new March of Dimes-funded study of pre-eclampsia, a serious and potentially deadly disorder that affects about 5 percent of pregnancies, researchers have found results in mice that may have important implications for diagnosis and treatment in humans. Yang Xia, M.D., Ph.D., and Rodney E. Kellems, Ph.D., Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; and Susan M. Ramin, M.D.

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Alzheimer’s Society comment on new research presented at the International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease (ICAD). High blood pressure doubles the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and increases the risk of stroke. This study highlights that it is becoming increasingly important to investigate anti-hypertension drugs as a potential treatment for dementia, not just a risk factor.

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UroToday.com - In this very important and unique study, the authors note that at 19.2 years average follow-up after percutaneous stone removal (PCNL), the incidence of hypertension (34.1%) is no different than after shock wave lithotripsy (SWL) (36.4%). Of note, the incidence of diabetes (23.5%) at first appeared to be higher than after SWL (16.8%) but in a multivariate analysis taking into account BMI and stone size, the difference did not hold up.

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