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Could We Have a Vaccine To Treat High Blood Pressure?
For a lot of individuals with high blood pressure the only long-term answer is daily pills and regular monitoring by your physician with alterations to your dose or changes to your pills as required. So just how much better would it be if you were able to simply have a vaccination for high blood pressure and dispense with the nuisance of your daily pills?
Around one in three Americans suffer from high blood pressure but, as a result of the complicated mix of tablets often required for treatment, only about one third of those individuals actually have got their blood pressure problem under control. But, this may be set to change in the near future.
In a trial which was carried out earlier this year 72 people (7 women and 65 men with an average age of 51 years 6 months) who were suffering from either mild or moderate high blood pressure were injected with a low dose (100 micrograms) vaccine, a high dose (300 micrograms) vaccine or a placebo. This process was repeated for weeks later and at the end of three months.
Two weeks after the last injection it was noted that the people injected with the high dose vaccine showed a drop of more than 5 mm Hg in their higher systolic blood pressure and close to 3 mm Hg in their diastolic blood pressure reading.
More significant, it was also found that the usual, and sometimes dangerous, spike in blood pressure that occurs in the morning between 5 am and 8 am was also down significantly by 25 mm Hg systolic and 13 mm Hg diastolic.
The trial patients all tolerated the vaccine without difficulty and no safety issues arose during the course of the trial.
So just how does this vaccine work?
Presently blood pressure is treated with a number of drugs that are designed to act in different ways. Two of the types of drugs in common use are angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors (such as Lotensin, Vasotec, Prinivil, Monopril, Aceon, Mavik, Accupril, Altace, Univasc and Zestril) and angiotensin-2 (AT-2) receptor blockers (such as Atacand, Micardis, Cozaar and Teveten). All of these drugs work by blocking the action of a hormone that causes the blood vessels to narrow and consequently to increase the pressure within the blood vessels.
The vaccine used in the trial, which is known as CYT006-ANgQb, is designed to work in exactly the same way as these two currently used drugs and so may certainly be an alternative for those people whose high blood pressure is currently treated with AT-2 receptor blockers or ACE inhibitors.
But what about those people whose blood pressure is currently being treated with the alternatives of beta blockers (such as Sectral, Corgard, Inderal, Blocadren, Betapace, Lopressor, Tenormin, Ziac and Zebeta) or calcium channel blockers (such as Norvasc, Calan, Plendil, Vascor, Lotrel, Nimotop, Isoptin, Procardia, Cardizem and Verelan)?
Well, it is early days yet and further studies will be necessary before we see a vaccine in general use for the control of high blood pressure. If the researchers are correct however it is likely that this vaccine is going to be effective for a lot of sufferers, whatever the treatment currently being given.
Only time will tell, but this is most certainly a very encouraging development.
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Article Source: http://www.articopia.com