Hormone Discovery Could Lead to New Treatments for Hypertension
November 14th, 2007 Posted by: Dr. Cox
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — A natural hormone could someday be used to make better, safer treatments for hypertension. Traditional hypertension drugs that lower sodium levels have serious side effects because they also reduce potassium levels.
For years scientists have thought there was a natural hormone that could safely flush sodium out of the body and be used to develop more effective and safer treatments for high blood pressure. Now researchers at Cornell University and the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research say they have discovered such a hormone.
Researchers developed a new technique for analyzing complex mixtures of small molecules â urine contains a mix of hundreds of molecules. This made it possible to finally identify the hormone.
The procedure found three completely new compounds. Researchers then synthesized the substances, injected them into rats, and monitored the ratsâ urine.
Two of the compounds raised sodium levels in the ratâs urine but kept potassium levels constant. Researchers say while the steroid hormone aldosterone does the opposite, this newly discovered molecule is structurally more similar to amino acid-derived neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin and, therefore, may also play other roles in the body.
The authors now want to know what other functions these compounds have and whether they directly influence blood pressure.
The study was funded by Naturon Pharmaceutical Corp.
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SOURCE: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2007;104:17873-17878