SAN ANTONIO (Jan. 14, 2010) — The kidney is made up of roughly 1 million working units called nephrons. These basic structural units remove waste products from the blood, recycle some substances to be reused and eliminate what is left as ur…
DALLAS — Nov. 9, 2010 — A hormone already responsible for increasing blood pressure by prompting the kidneys to retain salt appears to moonlight as a major stimulator of the brain centers that control the vascular system and blood pressure.
Re…
Children who have hypertension are much more likely to have learning disabilities than children with normal blood pressure, according to a new University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) study published this week in the journal, Pediatrics. In fac…
New Orleans, LA — Research conducted by scientists at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans has found that two proteins in the brain act as valves to turn the hormone that regulates water retention in the body on and off. Their findings may lead …
Genetic differences that prevent tiny blood vessels from relaxing may be one reason why some people have high blood pressure, or hypertension, according to research led by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The findings are published in the February issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. “These findings provide new insights into the cause of hypertension and how normal blood pressure is regulated,” says lead investigator Kendall J. Blumer, Ph.D., professor of cell biology and physiology. “This may lead to a way of determining the underlying cause of a person’s hypertension and the most effective treatment for that individual.”
A Medical College of Georgia pilot study using meditation to help lower blood pressure in teens was so successful that the project has been extended to five high schools and a middle school. Dr. Vernon Barnes, a physiologist at the Georgia Prevention Institute with over 30 years of experience in teaching and applying meditation techniques, conducted the pilot five years ago, teaching meditation to students with high-normal blood pressure at a Richmond County high school. The results, published in a 1999 edition of Psychosomatic Medicine, cited lower blood pressure and other improvements among participants. The success spurred the GPI to expand the project to include 156 high school students and 80 middle school students in Richmond County. The study is funded by the American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health.