High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is a major health issue in the United States.
It affects more than 116 million adults and raises the risk of serious problems like heart disease and stroke. In the year 2020, high blood pressure played a part in over 670,000 deaths.
Even though there are medicines to treat high blood pressure, many people still have trouble keeping it under control. But a recent study from the University of Virginia has found something new that might lead to better treatment options in the future.
The study looked at how the body naturally controls blood pressure. One important factor is calcium. Calcium helps the smooth muscle cells in our blood vessels work properly. These muscle cells use calcium to tighten or relax the blood vessels. When the vessels are too tight, blood pressure goes up. When they relax, blood pressure goes down.
Doctors often give patients medications called calcium channel blockers. These drugs reduce the amount of calcium that enters the muscle cells, helping blood vessels relax and lowering blood pressure.
But calcium is also important for many other things in the body, like helping muscles move and sending signals in the brain. Because of this, calcium channel blockers can sometimes cause unwanted side effects.
What makes this new study special is that the scientists found something new inside the smooth muscle cells. They found two tiny structures called nanodomains. These nanodomains act like message centers. They help control whether blood vessels should tighten or relax, based on the body’s needs.
In people with healthy blood pressure, these nanodomains send balanced signals—some to tighten and some to relax the vessels. But in people with high blood pressure, the signals to tighten are too strong and the signals to relax are too weak. This keeps the blood vessels too tight, which leads to high blood pressure.
This finding is important because it shows a new way to treat high blood pressure. Instead of blocking calcium everywhere in the body, future treatments could aim at these specific nanodomains. That way, blood pressure could be lowered without causing other problems related to calcium.
Scientists still need to do more research before they can turn this into a treatment. But this discovery gives us a much better idea of how the body controls blood pressure. It may lead to new medicines that are safer and work better.
If scientists can find a way to fix the real cause of high blood pressure, instead of just treating the symptoms, they could help many people live longer and healthier lives. This could also help lower the number of heart attacks, strokes, and other serious problems caused by high blood pressure.
For now, this research brings hope. It may lead to a future where people with high blood pressure have more choices for treatment, with fewer side effects and better results.
If you care about blood pressure, please read studies about Intensive blood pressure treatment for older adults may harm heart and kidneys and What you should know about high blood pressure medications.
If you care about blood pressure, please read studies about High blood pressure and marijuana: a risky combination and Common blood pressure drug may not prevent heart attack effectively.
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