For many people suffering from high blood pressure the long-term answer is daily pills and regular monitoring from your doctor with alterations to your dose or changes in your pills as necessary. So how much better would it be if you were able to simply have a vaccination for high blood pressure and do away with the nuisance of your daily pills?

Around one in three Americans are presently suffering from high blood pressure but, because of the complicated mixture of pills frequently necessary for treatment, only some one third of those people in fact have got their blood pressure problem under control. Nonetheless, this could be set to change in the near future.

In a trial which was carried out earlier this year 72 patients (7 women and 65 men with an average age of 51 years 6 months) suffering from mild or moderate hypertension were injected with a low dose (100 micrograms) vaccine, a high dose (300 micrograms) vaccine or a placebo. This process was repeated a month later and at the end of twelve weeks.

Two weeks after the last injection it was noted that the high dose vaccine patients were showing a fall of more than 5 mm Hg in their higher systolic blood pressure and almost 3 mm Hg in their diastolic blood pressure reading.

More significant, it was also discovered that the usual, and possibly dangerous, peek in blood pressure which occurs in the early morning between 5 am and 8 am was also reduced markedly by 25 mm Hg systolic and 13 mm Hg diastolic.

The patients taking part in the trial all tolerated the vaccine well and no safety issues arose during the course of the trial.

So exactly how does the vaccine work?

Presently high blood pressure is controlled with a number of drugs which are designed to act on the body in different ways. Two of the types of drugs commonly used are angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors (such as Lotensin, Univasc, Aceon, Mavik, Prinivil, Accupril, Capoten and Zestril) and angiotensin-2 (AT-2) receptor blockers (such as Atacand, Avapro, Micardis, Cozaar and Teveten). In both cases these drugs work by blocking the action of a hormone which causes the blood vessels to narrow and consequently to increase the pressure within the blood vessels.

The vaccine used in the trial, which is called CYT006-ANgQb, is designed to work in precisely the same way as these two currently used drugs and so could clearly provide an alternative for those patients whose blood pressure is now controlled using ACE inhibitors or AT-2 receptor blockers.

But what about those patients whose high blood pressure is being controlled with the alternatives of beta blockers (such as Sectral, Inderal, Corgard, Lopressor, Ziac, Cartol, Blocadren, Tenormin, Toprol XL and Zebeta) or calcium channel blockers (such as Norvasc, Cardizem, Adalat, Isoptin, Procardia, Nimotop, Tiazac, Plendil, Sular, Calan, Vascor, Lotrel and Verelan)?

Of course, it is early days yet and additional studies will be needed before we see a vaccine in general use for the control of high blood pressure. If the scientists are right however it is likely that this vaccine is going to be effective for most sufferers, regardless of the treatment presently being given.

Only time will tell, however this is obviously a very encouraging development.

TheBloodPressureCenter.com provides information on a wide range of topics including finding the best blood pressure monitor and natural remedies for high blood pressure

Autor: Donald Saunders

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