INTRODUCTION Nonadherence to antihypertensive therapy is one of the main causes of resistant hypertension. OBJECTIVES The aim of our study was to evaluate adherence to therapy in patients with resistant hypertension by determining serum antihypertensive drug levels with the use of liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). PATIENTS AND METHODS The study included 36 patients ...

Hypertension is a leading cause of cardiovascular mortality, but only about half of patients on antihypertensive therapy achieve blood pressure control. Preeclampsia is defined as pregnancy-induced hypertension and proteinuria, and is associated with increased maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity. Similarly, a large number of patients with preeclampsia are non-responsive to antihypert...

OBJECTIVE A drug interaction is defined as any alteration, pharmacokinetics and/or pharmacodynamics, produced by different substances, other drug treatments, dietary factors and habits such as drinking and smoking. These interactions can affect the antihypertensive drugs, altering their therapeutic efficacy and causing toxic effects. The aim of this study was to conduct a review of available da...

BACKGROUND Hypertension is common in patients with type 2 diabetes, affecting up to 60% of patients. The Korean Diabetes Association performed a nationwide survey about prevalence, awareness and control of hypertension among diabetic Koreans. METHODS The current survey included 3,859 diabetic patients recruited from 43 hospitals in Korea. Age, gender, height, weight and blood pressure (BP) we...

BACKGROUND Recent interest in antihypertensive agents, especially calcium channel blockers, has been sparked by the notion that these medications may be neuroprotective. A modest literature, with mixed results, has examined whether these medications might lower the odds or risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) or dementia. There are no data for essential tremor (ET). OBJECTIVE To examine the assoc...

To improve blood pressure (BP) control of their patients, physicians either adjust or switch antihypertensive medication. Currently, there is only limited information available on why physicians decide to switch antihypertensive medications. A questionnaire-based survey was performed between November 2011 and March 2012 in the Czech Republic. General practitioners were asked to fill in question...

Antihypertensive effects of an angiotensin (Ang) II receptor antagonist, candesartan cilexetil (TCV-116), were compared with those of an angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor, enalapril, in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR), 2-kidney, 1-clip hypertensive rats (2K, 1C-HR) and 1-kidney, 1-clip hypertensive rats (1K, 1C-HR). CV-11974, the active form of TCV-116, had no inhibitory activ...

Carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) and plaques have been shown to have a strong continuous relationship with cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality; therefore, carotid atherosclerosis, as assessed by ultrasonography, can be regarded as a reliable surrogate end-point for therapeutic interventions. In this survey, we report the results of 16 double blind, randomized, controlled studies com...

BACKGROUND High adherence to angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) reported in observational studies has frequently been attributed to improved tolerability. However, these agents are also relatively new to the market compared to other antihypertensive medications. We aimed to determine if an association exists between adherence and market ava...

Antihypertensive drugs have been linked to new-onset diabetes (NOD); however, data on the effect of these drugs on the development of NOD in hypertensive patients has not been well determined in a clinical setting. The aim was to investigate the association between antihypertensive drugs and NOD in Taiwan. We conducted a retrospective study of hypertensive Taiwanese patients receiving antihyper...