one in five people struggle with hypertension after treatment
researchers have long been mystified by the one in five people who still struggle with high blood pressure even after undergoing aggressive treatment for the condition.
“the only thing doctors can really do in these patients is adding or switching medications and increasing the dose with the hope they can find something that works,” yang said. “until now, we haven’t had any clear indication what the mechanism is for resistant hypertension.
“our research could provide a first step toward identifying new ways to effectively overcome treatment-resistant hypertension.”
to determine the role, if any, that gut bacteria play in treating high blood pressure, yang and his team compared the effectiveness of the antihypertensive drug quinapril in rats with normal gut bacteria to those whose gut bacteria had been compromised by antibiotics. there was a distinct difference between the two, with the antibiotic group exhibiting a more robust response to quinapril.
gut bacteria can deprive body of antihypertensive effects of treatment
further analysis pointed to the bacteria coprococcus as the source of the problem with lab experiments showing that
coprococcus comes
, a dominant species in this genus, has the ability to break down quinapril and ramipril, depriving the body of the antihypertensive effects of the two drugs.