Vaccine may treat high blood pressure....
Today's post: Monday, 3-10-2008
High blood pressure is both an indicator of underlying problems, see the next paragraph for some of them, & is a direct cause of problems as well as a risk for heart attack, stroke, & kidney damage & other problems.
(Being way too fat & heavy; sleep apnea, eating too much salt & too few vegetables & fruits; plaque build up in your blood vessels, lack of exercise, exposure to some pollutants, taking over the counter pain drugs, unrelieved stress, blood vessel damage from too high levels of blood sugar, & too much noise at night all are known causes of high blood pressure.)
If you have it, you need to check the potential causes to reverse those you can. And, you need to bring it down as close to the ideal of 115 over 75 as you can to best protect your health regardless of your progress on the causes.
The problems with lowering it with drugs are many however. Having it is mostly unnoticeable to you unless it gets horribly & dangerously high. And, the most commonly prescribed drugs often make you feel worse & less healthy than before; & many cause sexual function problems.
So many people who have high blood pressure refuse to take the drugs or stop taking them. Even worse, taking them irregularly or stopping taking them suddenly is in itself quite dangerous.
And, drugs are expensive. Worse, many of the most commonly prescribed blood pressure drugs actually have health harming side effects.
Not only that, but to protect your health, the most important times of day to have your blood pressure be low enough are at night & early in the morning. And, though some kinds are a bit better, the drugs often don’t do that well.
That means that a vaccine that lowers high blood pressure; has few side effects; & lowers blood pressure best at night & early mornings would be extremely valuable indeed.
It may now exist & might be available soon.
I found this news on Yahoo online Health News from Health Day, dated, 3-6-2008.:
“We found the vaccine was well-tolerated, and it did lower blood pressure in hypertensive people," said vaccine inventor Martin Bachmann, of Cytos Biotechnology in Schlieren, Switzerland.
Currently, there are two problems with high blood pressure drugs, Bachmann said. "On the one hand, people just don't take them, and, on other hand, the drugs don't work very well early in the morning," he said.
In the United States, only about one-third of people with high blood pressure (also known as hypertension) have their blood pressure under control, according to background information for the study. Many people don't take their blood pressure medications because of side effects, concerns about the long-term effects of the drugs, and their lack of perceptible symptoms, Bachmann noted.
"Our vaccine would only have to be taken maybe twice or three times a year, not every day. In addition, it works best early in the morning," Bachmann said.
In the new study, Bachmann's team presented the results of an early trial of 72 patients with mild to moderate high blood pressure who were randomly assigned to receive the vaccine at two different doses or a placebo.
The patients' blood pressure was measured before the trial and 14 weeks after the trial began. The outcome the researchers were looking for was whether the vaccine was safe and well-tolerated.
Bachmann's team found that patients who received the higher dose of vaccine had a drop in their systolic blood pressure of 9 mm Hg and a 4 mm Hg drop in their diastolic blood pressure. The blood pressure drop was particularly significant in the early morning, where patients showed a 25 mm Hg drop in systolic blood pressure and a 13 mm Hg drop in diastolic blood pressure, compared with patients receiving a placebo.
Overall, the vaccine was well tolerated, with only 10 patients reporting flu-like symptoms after the injection. Such reactions are common with several vaccines, the researchers noted. In addition, some patients experienced mild irritation at the injection site.
The study results are published in the March 8 issue of The Lancet.
More extensive testing is needed before the vaccine could be made available to the public, Bachmann said. "We are moving on to eventually large trials," he said.
One expert thinks this finding could be a breakthrough in helping patients control their blood pressure.
"Poorly controlled blood pressure remains a worldwide health-care problem and contributes greatly to heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular deaths," said Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Although there are lifestyle modifications and a number of effective and reasonably well-tolerated medications that can help control blood pressure, many patients don't adhere to their regimens in a way that works effectively, Fonarow said. "A (vaccination) for controlling blood pressure, if proven to be safe and effective, could represent an important therapeutic advance," he said.
This study is the first to show promising data with a vaccine against angiotensin II, a potent constrictor of blood vessels, in patients with mild to moderate hypertension….”
X * X * X* X
Drugs called ARB’s, that have this effect, are one of the best kinds drugs to control high blood pressure as they seem to work & tend to have the fewest side effects for your quality of life & your health.
However, the doses needed, even of ARB’s, to get the kind of early morning improvement of this vaccine are high enough to literally make you feel sick & depleted.
Only about one seventh of these people who were given this vaccine had any side effects. And the people who did had temporary side effects only.
If this passes safety screens & becomes available, it will be one the very first good treatments for high blood pressure available.
1. Keep watching to see if it gets approved. I will & will do a post here if it does.
2. I’m also working on an eBook listing the nondrug methods that lower high blood pressure, many of which turn off the causes of high blood pressure & almost all of which have other health benefits & virtually no side effects.
If you’d like me to email you when it’s ready, email me at: iehealth @ aol.com .
(I’ve listed my email so you have to delete the added spaces to use it. I understand that protects me from “spam robots.”)
Today's post: Monday, 3-10-2008
High blood pressure is both an indicator of underlying problems, see the next paragraph for some of them, & is a direct cause of problems as well as a risk for heart attack, stroke, & kidney damage & other problems.
(Being way too fat & heavy; sleep apnea, eating too much salt & too few vegetables & fruits; plaque build up in your blood vessels, lack of exercise, exposure to some pollutants, taking over the counter pain drugs, unrelieved stress, blood vessel damage from too high levels of blood sugar, & too much noise at night all are known causes of high blood pressure.)
If you have it, you need to check the potential causes to reverse those you can. And, you need to bring it down as close to the ideal of 115 over 75 as you can to best protect your health regardless of your progress on the causes.
The problems with lowering it with drugs are many however. Having it is mostly unnoticeable to you unless it gets horribly & dangerously high. And, the most commonly prescribed drugs often make you feel worse & less healthy than before; & many cause sexual function problems.
So many people who have high blood pressure refuse to take the drugs or stop taking them. Even worse, taking them irregularly or stopping taking them suddenly is in itself quite dangerous.
And, drugs are expensive. Worse, many of the most commonly prescribed blood pressure drugs actually have health harming side effects.
Not only that, but to protect your health, the most important times of day to have your blood pressure be low enough are at night & early in the morning. And, though some kinds are a bit better, the drugs often don’t do that well.
That means that a vaccine that lowers high blood pressure; has few side effects; & lowers blood pressure best at night & early mornings would be extremely valuable indeed.
It may now exist & might be available soon.
I found this news on Yahoo online Health News from Health Day, dated, 3-6-2008.:
“We found the vaccine was well-tolerated, and it did lower blood pressure in hypertensive people," said vaccine inventor Martin Bachmann, of Cytos Biotechnology in Schlieren, Switzerland.
Currently, there are two problems with high blood pressure drugs, Bachmann said. "On the one hand, people just don't take them, and, on other hand, the drugs don't work very well early in the morning," he said.
In the United States, only about one-third of people with high blood pressure (also known as hypertension) have their blood pressure under control, according to background information for the study. Many people don't take their blood pressure medications because of side effects, concerns about the long-term effects of the drugs, and their lack of perceptible symptoms, Bachmann noted.
"Our vaccine would only have to be taken maybe twice or three times a year, not every day. In addition, it works best early in the morning," Bachmann said.
In the new study, Bachmann's team presented the results of an early trial of 72 patients with mild to moderate high blood pressure who were randomly assigned to receive the vaccine at two different doses or a placebo.
The patients' blood pressure was measured before the trial and 14 weeks after the trial began. The outcome the researchers were looking for was whether the vaccine was safe and well-tolerated.
Bachmann's team found that patients who received the higher dose of vaccine had a drop in their systolic blood pressure of 9 mm Hg and a 4 mm Hg drop in their diastolic blood pressure. The blood pressure drop was particularly significant in the early morning, where patients showed a 25 mm Hg drop in systolic blood pressure and a 13 mm Hg drop in diastolic blood pressure, compared with patients receiving a placebo.
Overall, the vaccine was well tolerated, with only 10 patients reporting flu-like symptoms after the injection. Such reactions are common with several vaccines, the researchers noted. In addition, some patients experienced mild irritation at the injection site.
The study results are published in the March 8 issue of The Lancet.
More extensive testing is needed before the vaccine could be made available to the public, Bachmann said. "We are moving on to eventually large trials," he said.
One expert thinks this finding could be a breakthrough in helping patients control their blood pressure.
"Poorly controlled blood pressure remains a worldwide health-care problem and contributes greatly to heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular deaths," said Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Although there are lifestyle modifications and a number of effective and reasonably well-tolerated medications that can help control blood pressure, many patients don't adhere to their regimens in a way that works effectively, Fonarow said. "A (vaccination) for controlling blood pressure, if proven to be safe and effective, could represent an important therapeutic advance," he said.
This study is the first to show promising data with a vaccine against angiotensin II, a potent constrictor of blood vessels, in patients with mild to moderate hypertension….”
X * X * X* X
Drugs called ARB’s, that have this effect, are one of the best kinds drugs to control high blood pressure as they seem to work & tend to have the fewest side effects for your quality of life & your health.
However, the doses needed, even of ARB’s, to get the kind of early morning improvement of this vaccine are high enough to literally make you feel sick & depleted.
Only about one seventh of these people who were given this vaccine had any side effects. And the people who did had temporary side effects only.
If this passes safety screens & becomes available, it will be one the very first good treatments for high blood pressure available.
1. Keep watching to see if it gets approved. I will & will do a post here if it does.
2. I’m also working on an eBook listing the nondrug methods that lower high blood pressure, many of which turn off the causes of high blood pressure & almost all of which have other health benefits & virtually no side effects.
If you’d like me to email you when it’s ready, email me at: iehealth @ aol.com .
(I’ve listed my email so you have to delete the added spaces to use it. I understand that protects me from “spam robots.”)
Labels: blood pressure drugs, heart attack, hypertension, prevent strokes, protect your heart, reduce high blood pressure, vaccine for high blood pressure
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