High blood pressure, or hypertension, is the leading modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and premature death worldwide.
And the key to treating patients with conditions ranging from chest pain to stroke is understanding the intricacies of how the cells around arteries and other blood vessels work to control blood pressure.
The importance of metals like potassium and calcium in this process is known.
In a recent study published in Nature Communications, researchers made a discovery about a critical and underappreciated role of another metal—zinc. The finding offers a new pathway for therapies to treat high blood pressure.
The study is from The University of Melbourne. One author is Ashenafi Betrie, Ph.D.
All the body’s functions depend on arteries channeling oxygen-rich blood—energy—to where it’s needed, and smooth muscle cells within these vessels direct how fast or slow the blood gets to each destination.
As smooth muscles contract, they narrow the artery and increase the blood pressure, and as the muscle relaxes, the artery expands and blood pressure falls.
If the blood pressure is too low the blood flow will not be enough to sustain a person’s body with oxygen and nutrients. If the blood pressure is too high, the blood vessels risk being damaged or even ruptured.
Fundamental discoveries going back more than 60 years have established that the levels of calcium and potassium in the muscle surrounding blood vessels control how they expand and contract.
In this study, the team examined the impact of zinc-based drugs on brain function in Alzheimer’s disease when they noticed a pronounced and unexpected decrease in blood pressure in mouse models treated with the drugs.
They found that coordinated action by zinc within sensory nerves, endothelial cells and the muscle of arteries triggers lower calcium levels in the muscle of the blood vessel.
This makes the vessel relax, decreasing blood pressure and increasing blood flow.
The scientists found that blood vessels in the brain and the heart were more sensitive to zinc than blood vessels in other areas of the body—an observation that warrants further research.
They say that essentially, zinc has the opposite effect to calcium on blood flow and pressure.
Zinc is an important metal ion in biology and, given that calcium and potassium are famous for controlling blood flow and pressure, it’s surprising that the role of zinc hasn’t previously been appreciated.
Another surprising fact is that genes that control zinc levels within cells are known to be linked to cardiovascular diseases including hypertension, and hypertension is also a known side effect of zinc deficiency.
If you care about blood pressure management, please read studies about this common food may help lower risk of high blood pressure, diabetes and findings of this diet could help reduce high blood pressure in older people.
For more information about high blood pressure treatment and prevention, please see recent studies about widely used blood pressure drugs may increase death risk in breast cancer and results showing that treatable cause of high blood pressure are often ignored.
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