Do you know someone with high blood pressure? You probably do—it’s one of the most common health problems in the world. Also known as hypertension, it affects millions of people and can lead to serious issues like heart attacks, strokes, and kidney failure if left untreated.
Now, scientists have made a big discovery that could change how we treat some types of high blood pressure. A team from Queen Mary University of London, along with other researchers, has developed a new kind of body scan. This “super scan” can find small lumps in a hormone-producing gland, and removing these lumps may completely cure high blood pressure for some people.
High blood pressure happens when the force of blood pushing against your artery walls is too strong. It can quietly damage your heart, blood vessels, kidneys, and other organs—often without any warning signs. That’s why it’s called the “silent killer.”
Doctors usually manage high blood pressure with diet, exercise, and medication. But for some people, even these treatments don’t work well. That’s where this new scan could make a big difference.
In some people, high blood pressure is caused by a problem in the adrenal glands—small glands that sit on top of each kidney. These glands can develop tiny lumps, or nodules, that make too much of a hormone called aldosterone. This hormone raises blood pressure by making the body hold on to salt and water.
These hormone-producing nodules are hard to detect. Until now, doctors had to use a difficult and often unreliable catheter test that was only available in a few hospitals. It didn’t always work, and most patients never got diagnosed.
But the new scan, tested on 128 people, is quick, painless, and highly accurate. It works by using a small amount of radioactive dye that attaches only to the lump producing the extra hormone. When doctors scan the body, the lump lights up clearly, making it easy to find.
The scan showed that two-thirds of the patients had a single nodule causing their high aldosterone levels. Once found, doctors were able to safely remove the nodule. And here’s the best part: many patients no longer needed any blood pressure medication afterward.
In fact, the researchers combined the scan with a simple urine test and were able to correctly predict who would be completely cured. Out of 24 people whose blood pressure returned to normal without medication, the scan and urine test had correctly identified 18.
This is huge. Before this, 99% of people with these nodules were never diagnosed, simply because the tests weren’t available or didn’t work well enough. With this new scan, that could all change.
This discovery, led by Professor Morris Brown and published in Nature Medicine, offers new hope for people whose high blood pressure doesn’t improve with medicine. It could also reduce the need for lifelong medication in some cases.
Of course, more research and wider access to the scan are still needed. But if adopted more broadly, this could become a standard tool in diagnosing and treating hard-to-control high blood pressure.
If you or someone you know has high blood pressure that doesn’t respond well to medication, it might be worth asking your doctor about this new option in the future. Just remember—always talk to your healthcare provider before making any changes to your treatment.
If you care about blood pressure, please read studies that black licorice could cause dangerous high blood pressure, and this common plant nutrient could help reduce high blood pressure.
For more information about blood pressure, please see recent studies about how coffee influence your risk of high blood pressure, and results showing this olive oil could reduce blood pressure in healthy people.
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