High blood pressure, also called hypertension, is a big health problem.
It’s like having too much air in a balloon – it could pop! In our bodies, it can cause heart diseases, strokes, and more.
For most people with high blood pressure, we don’t know why it happens. They need to take medicine for life to control it.
Discovering Small Lumps in the Hormone Gland
Doctors from Queen Mary University of London, Barts Hospital, and Cambridge University Hospital led a study.
They used a new type of CT scan to find tiny lumps in a hormone gland.
Removing these lumps cured high blood pressure. These lumps were found in one out of every twenty people with high blood pressure.
A 60-Year-Old Problem Solved
The research was published in Nature Medicine. It solved a problem that was 60 years old. The problem was about how to find these hormone-making lumps.
The old way was to use a difficult test that only a few hospitals could do. Often, it did not work.
But now, they used a new scan combined with a urine test. This found people who could stop taking all their blood pressure medicines after treatment.
The Study and Its Findings
In the study, 128 people were scanned. Their high blood pressure was caused by a hormone called aldosterone.
The scan found that in two-thirds of these people, the hormone came from a harmless lump in one of the adrenal glands. This lump could be safely taken out.
The scan used a dye called metomidate that only sticks to the lump making aldosterone. This dye is radioactive but safe.
The scan was as good as the old test, but it was fast, painless, and worked in every patient.
The old test could not tell which patients would be totally cured by removing the gland. But this new scan, combined with a urine test, could find who would be cured.
What the Doctors Said
Professor Morris Brown, one of the study’s leaders, said the lumps are very small. They can be missed on a normal CT scan. But with their new injection, the lumps glow for a few minutes.
Then, they can be seen as the clear cause of high blood pressure. This can then be cured. Until now, 99% of these lumps were never found because tests were difficult and not available. But this could change.
Professor William Drake, another study leader, said the study took many years of hard work and team effort.
The people who did this work also helped a lot during the pandemic emergency. He said the future of research in this area is in safe hands.
More About Aldosterone and High Blood Pressure
Earlier research by this group found that in 5% to 10% of people with high blood pressure, the cause is a change in a gene in the adrenal glands. This change makes them produce too much aldosterone.
This hormone causes the body to keep more salt, which increases blood pressure. People with too much aldosterone in their blood do not respond well to normal blood pressure medicines. They also have a higher chance of heart attacks and strokes.
The study was published in Nature Medicine.
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