�Reducing levels of uric acid in blood lowered blood press to normal in nearly teens in a study designed to investigate a possible radio link between blood pressure and the chemical, a waste product of the body's normal metabolism, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in a account that appears in the current military issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"If you reduce uric acid, at least in some patients, you may be able to reduce blood pressure," said Dr. Daniel Feig, associate professor of pediatrics-renal at BCM and chief of the pediatric hypertension clinics at Texas Children's Hospital. "This could be unitary way hoi polloi develop hypertension and english hawthorn allow us to develop new therapies."
Understanding how people develop high blood pressure gives scientists new tools for understanding the upset and development drugs to prevent and treat it.
Uric acid builds up when the eubstance makes besides much of it or fails to excrete it. It is a waste product resulting from the metabolism of food. Too much uric acid can buoy cause urarthritis, which occurs when uric acid crystals accumulate in the joints. In this study, researchers used allopurinol to tighten high uric acid levels. Allopurinol is usually secondhand to handle gout, merely Feig aforesaid its potentiality side personal effects rule it out as a treatment for high blood pressure.
In the JAMA study, Feig and his colleagues treated teens with newly diagnosed high profligate pressure and elevated levels of uric acid in their parentage with zyloprim. In the study, half of the 30 teen-agers with freshly diagnosed high blood pressing and higher than normal levels of uric acid in their blood underwent treatment with allopurinol twice a clarence Day for four-spot weeks. The other half received a placebo (an inactive do drugs) on the same docket. They then went without either drug for 2 weeks in front receiving the opposite treatment for another four weeks.
The treatment non only reduced uric acid levels, it also reduced blood pressure level in to the highest degree of the teens, aforesaid Feig. In fact, he said, blood pressures reduced to normal in 20 of the 30 teens when they were on allopurinol. By contrast, only 1 of the 30 teens had normal roue pressure when receiving placebo.
"This is far from being a reasonable therapeutic treatment for high blood pressure, but these findings indicate a starting time step in understanding the pathway of the disease," said Feig. "You cannot prevent a disease until you know the drive. This study is way of finding that out."
Studies in rats had indicated previously that high levels of uric acid could be associated with the development of high blood pressure through a proved pathway, said Feig. However, he and his colleagues needed to determine if this was true for humans as well.
"The antihypertensive therapies available to patients are well proven and safe," said Feig. "Currently available antihyperuricemic therapies (treatments that lower uric acidic) are non safe sufficiency to be used as first line therapy for most people with high blood pressure."
Side effects could include nausea, diarrhea, emesis, liver problems and fifty-fifty a selfsame rare, potentially life-threatening reaction known as Steven-Johnson syndrome. While only 1 in 3,000 people develop this problem, the hazard is to a fault great to prescribe the drug on a function basis to people with high stemma pressure, a problem that affects 30 to 35 percent of adults.
Currently uncommitted therapies ar effective but are non solving the problem in everyone. Optimal blood pressures are achieved in only when 40 pct of people who ar treated for the problem. Understanding the cause of high blood pressure could lead to better treatments and level methods of prevention.
Animal studies indicate that early in the disease, the duplicate uric acid activates the renin angiotensin system of the body, shrinking key blood vessels and causing high blood pressure. Eventually, however, the small vessels in the kidney are permanently affected, making the blood air pressure sensitive to salt or sodium. Too much table salt causes the pressure to rise.
Others world Health Organization took part in this work let in Beth Soletsky, RN, also of BCM and Dr. Richard J. Johnson of the University of Florida at Gainesville.
Funding for this work came from the National Institutes of Health.
The full article can be found at http://www.jama.com/.
Source: Glenna Picton
Baylor College of Medicine
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