Chicken soup, that popular home remedy for the common cold sometimes known as "Grandma's Penicillin," may have a new role alongside medication and other medical measures in fighting high blood pressure, scientists in Japan are reporting.

Research presented at the 20th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium, sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), suggests that olmesartan, a drug commonly used to treat high blood pressure, may play a role in reducing coronary plaque.

"How does the kidney know how to do it and why does it break in hypertension?" says Dr. Edward W. Inscho, physiologist in the Medical College of Georgia Schools of Medicine and Graduate Studies.

A new injected drug that treats high blood pressure has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

A new article indicates that an increased intake in minerals such as potassium, and possibly magnesium and calcium by dietary means may reduce the risk of high blood pressure and decrease blood pressure in people with hypertension.

Many of the 75 million Americans with essential hypertension also develop diabetes and other complications in addition to their high blood pressure, and researchers have discovered a common molecular mechanism in a strain of rat that explains why such metabolic disorders arise together in mammals.

Resistant hypertension, blood pressure that remains above goal despite taking three antihypertensive medications or high blood pressure that is controlled but requires four or more medications to do so, may benefit from specialized diagnostic and therapeutic treatment by health care providers according to guidelines issued by the American Heart Association and co-authored by UAB physicians.

Bleeding from ruptured esophageal varices is the main complication of portal hypertension and a major cause of death. About one-third of variceal bleeding episodes are fatal while 70% of survivors re-bleed within a year.

Scientists at the Center for Translational Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia have found that a protein that appears to have protective and perhaps healing effects for failing hearts also plays a similar role in high blood pressure. They found lower-than-normal levels of the protein S100A1 in cells that line blood vessel walls in animals with high blood pressure.

The best available treatment for chronic kidney disease from high blood pressure did not keep the disease from substantially worsening in about a fourth of African-Americans studied, according to long-term results of a National Institutes of Health study published April 28, 2008, in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Despite the well-known dangers of high blood pressure, major shortfalls still exist in the screening, treatment and control of the disease even when patients are getting a doctor's care, according to a study from the Stanford University School of Medicine.

People with high blood pressure appear to be less likely to have migraine than those with low blood pressure. Researchers say stiff arteries associated with high blood pressure may play a role in protecting against migraine. The research is published in the April 15, 2008, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.