Infants whose mothers smoke during pregnancy have substantially higher blood pressures in their first months of life, Dutch researchers reported in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association.

A report led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) helps explain the origins of cardiac fibrosis, a stiffening of the heart muscle that leads to a variety of cardiac diseases, most notably heart failure.

Hispanic women with hypertension and coronary artery disease respond better to drug regimens aimed at controlling high blood pressure than non-Hispanic white women, University of Florida researchers report.

Research in Norway has shown that there have been substantial savings in drug costs since the introduction of a regulation requiring doctors to prescribe the recommended first-line treatment for hypertension (high blood pressure). Since March 2004, family doctors have been reimbursed for drug costs only if they prescribe thiazides as first-line therapy for uncomplicated hypertension, unless there are medical reasons for selecting other drugs.

Eating about 30 calories a day of dark chocolate was associated with a lowering of blood pressure, without weight gain or other adverse effects, according to a study in the July 4 issue of JAMA.

Researchers at the University of Alberta have identified a "central command system" for pulmonary hypertension, a disease that currently has no cure and kills thousands each year.

“There is an enormous amount of interest in using meditation as a form of therapy to cope with a variety of modern-day health problems, especially hypertension, stress and chronic pain, but the majority of evidence that seems to support this notion is anecdotal, or it comes from poor quality studies,” say Maria Ospina and Kenneth Bond, researchers at the University of Alberta/Capital Health Evidence-based Practice Center in Edmonton, Canada.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved on June 15 Letairis (ambrisentan) for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension, a rare, life-threatening condition characterized by continuous high blood pressure within the arteries of the lungs.

Both national and international guidelines on the use of mobile phones in the provision of clinical care are urgently needed, an editorial in the June issue of Quality and Safety in Health Care argues.

Substituting soy nuts for other protein sources in a healthy diet appears to lower blood pressure in postmenopausal women, and also may reduce cholesterol levels in women with high blood pressure, according to a report in the May 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Single tablets containing two drugs may be the key to increasing blood pressure control rates from 36 percent to over 80 percent in the US

Researchers at the Yale University School of Medicine have found that patients with obstructive sleep apnea are at increased risk for developing of type II diabetes, independent of other risk factors. The findings are being presented at the American Thoracic Society 2007 International Conference, on Monday, May 21.