High blood pressure, also called hypertension, affects more than 116 million adults in the United States.
It’s one of the top causes of heart attacks, strokes, and other serious health problems. In 2020 alone, high blood pressure played a role in more than 670,000 deaths.
Even though it’s common, many people still have trouble keeping their blood pressure in a healthy range. But new research from the University of Virginia may bring us closer to better treatments.
Scientists there have discovered a key process that helps explain how the body controls blood pressure—and what goes wrong in people with hypertension. This new information could lead to improved treatments that have fewer side effects.
Blood pressure is partly controlled by calcium levels inside the smooth muscle cells that line the blood vessels. These muscle cells use calcium to either tighten or relax the vessels. When blood vessels tighten, blood pressure goes up. When they relax, it goes down.
A common type of medicine for high blood pressure is called a calcium channel blocker. These drugs stop calcium from entering the muscle cells, helping blood vessels relax.
But calcium is also important for other functions in the body, like muscle movement and nerve signals. That’s why calcium blockers can cause unwanted side effects such as dizziness, swelling, or tiredness.
The new study from the University of Virginia found something that may help avoid these problems. Researchers discovered two tiny areas inside the muscle cells, which they named “nanodomains.” These areas act like tiny control centers, helping to manage calcium signals and telling the blood vessels when to tighten or relax.
In healthy people, these nanodomains keep everything balanced, allowing the blood vessels to adjust as needed. But in people with high blood pressure, this balance gets thrown off.
The signals that make the blood vessels tighten become too strong, and the ones that tell them to relax become too weak. This keeps the vessels more narrow than they should be and raises blood pressure.
This discovery is exciting because it might lead to new treatments that work differently from today’s medicines. Instead of blocking calcium everywhere in the body, future drugs could target these tiny nanodomains inside the muscle cells.
That means blood pressure could be lowered without affecting other body systems, which could reduce side effects.
More research is needed to learn exactly how these nanodomains work and how best to treat them. But this study is a big step forward. It helps scientists better understand what causes high blood pressure, not just how to treat the symptoms.
For millions of people who live with hypertension, this could mean better control of their condition, fewer side effects, and lower chances of heart attacks and strokes.
This discovery gives new hope in the battle against one of the world’s most serious health problems.
If you care about blood pressure, please read studies that turmeric and vitamin D may boost blood pressure control in type 2 diabetes and scientists find link between blood pressure drugs and bowel diseases.
For more about blood pressure, please read studies about high blood pressure treatment: ARBs vs. ACE inhibitors and blood pressure response to exercise can predict future heart disease.
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