Bacteria that live in the gut seem to greatly reduce the drug’s effectiveness on blood pressure, which may ultimately explain why some patients respond better than others to the drug, American researchers have discovered.
Researchers at the University of Toledo in Ohio studied the effectiveness of a drug that has long been used to combat hypertension in rats with normal gut microbiota, compared with rats with normal gut microbiota. The microbiota is cleared by massive doses of antibiotics.
They found that animals in the second group responded better to quinapril. They then identified the bacterium coprococcus in question, because it is able to lower quinapril and another product, ramipril.
Approximately 20% of patients diagnosed with hypertension suffer from a resistant form of the disease, in which even aggressive treatment fails to lower their pressure to acceptable levels. Faced with such a situation, the only option available to doctors is to add or remove medications, or even change the dose, in the hopes of finally determining a winning strategy.
The study is very interesting, as resistance to hypotensive drugs currently available is a very important issue.reaction by Professor Benoît Arsenault, of the Faculty of Medicine at Laval University.
If this study was conducted on rats, the researchers discovered an anecdotal human case that suggests they were on the right path.
In 2015, the‘International Journal of Cardiology related the case of a woman suffering from chronic resistant hypertension. But when the woman needed antibiotics for an infection, doctors controlled her high blood pressure without medication for two weeks and then for six months on just one medication. Her hypertension then began to resist treatment again.
American researchers agree that it is unrealistic to consider using antibiotics over the long term to control hypertension. They believe, however, that a patient can change their microbiota using probiotics, prebiotics or changes in their diet.
We know that people have the same bacteria in their intestines [souris]but that is really all we know so far.says Professor Arsenault, who warns that we need to be patient before this discovery can find concrete applications in humans.
So before you think we have discovered a major cause of hypotensive resistance in humans […] I think you need to take some and leave some.
For obvious reasons, he recalled, Researchers have always been more eager to publish reliable and fascinating results than studies that have failed. This creates a kind of publication bias that partially explains why the preclinical results you sometimes dream of are not always present when clinical studies begin..
Hypertension is the most common cardiovascular disease on the planet. He was named the silent killer because millions of people suffer from it unknowingly and it increases the risk of other health problems, such as heart attack and stroke.
The findings of this study were published in a medical journal Hypertension.
Source: Radio-Canada
