Reminds me of the scene in StarTrek #4 where McCoy sez something like 'Fundascopic examination is unrevealing in these cases.'
A scan that cures is therefore 'the future'.
A new scan to detect and cure the commonest cause of high blood pressure
81–90 of 92 posts
Re: A new scan to detect and cure the commonest cause of high blood pressure
#82Can someone who knows more about the field to comment on whether this is as revolutionary as it sounds?
Radiologist. It’s cool, it’s a nice study. The article definitely over hypes the “common cause of hypertension”. These lesions are rare. Most people with high blood pressure have it because of metabolic disease/chronic stress/lifestyle, and it can be managed with changes to diet exercise and meds. It is true that doing adrenal vein sampling is hard and not always successful. Having a protocol that can non-invasively…
> Most people with high blood pressure have it because of metabolic disease/chronic stress/lifestyle, and it can be managed with changes to diet exercise and meds.
Do we know this though? If, as the article claims, the lesions were previously hard to detect, I would guess that most people with them never get diagnosed. I have high blood pressure and I've never been examined for those lesions.
Re: A new scan to detect and cure the commonest cause of high blood pressure
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
- this only concerns 5 - 10% of all hypertension patients - ~50% of adult Americans have hypertension - scanning all medication-non-responders (= people suffering from "resistant hypertension") and operating on all of them to remove the causative nodules sounds like quite the tall order - doctors won't just suddenly start sending all the resistant hypertension patients to CTs to diagnose this cause, instead they will…
That sounds terrible. Are you advocating for that or just saying that is just what will happen.
Saying it will happen. Ideally everyone with treatment resistant blood pressure should now get the CT scan. But this would require a great deal of awareness, training and trust for the blood pressure treating MD/GP, the radiologist and the potential surgeon. Then there is the insurance aspect: Does the insurance in question even allow for this kind of CT scan & urine test for high blood pressure?
Integrating new techniques like this into commonly available treatment is HARD.
Re: A new scan to detect and cure the commonest cause of high blood pressure
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wasn’t rude, I was wrong, and any blame for this is totally accepted. I wasn’t rude, because I wasn’t adressing anyone in particular — I wasn’t writing on qmul.ac.uk or in an email to the author. You were communicating directly with me, and I found it unnecessarily rude. Edit: oh and btw you are totally and absolutely “allowed” to be rude, it’s not something I find off-limits or the likes. Just know that I find it……
Honestly, my apologies. I’m quitting nicotine after ten years of (ab)using it. I should probably stay off the internet for a while. Again, my apologies.
That’s great news actually and I wish you all the best to get off of it permanently!
Honestly, if venting off on the Internets helps you to go through with it — well I’m always here when you need me ;-)
Re: A new scan to detect and cure the commonest cause of high blood pressure
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess you've never seen the streams of pictures of unhealthy food.
Um, no actually
I don't have fb or twitter accounts either, but I have been exposed to it regardless.
People will post whatever crap they eat. It tends to be very unhealthy food, and too much of it. Which normalizes eating non-food. Which affects health quite negatively.
Re: A new scan to detect and cure the commonest cause of high blood pressure
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cost to you, or combined cost for you / insurer ? Honest question.
Most blood pressure medication is dirt cheap, effective pills have been generic for decades now -- you can get a 3-month supply of the largest dose of lisinopril for under $10 cash (no insurance). https://costplusdrugs.com/medications/lisinopril-2_5mg-table...
It depends on the type. ARB's are fairly cheap. Alpha 2 receptor agonists are a bit more. When I was on those I paid cash and almost always received a coupon on the spot for some reason but my total price out of pocket was $28 for the agonist and about $12 for the ARB. Some people are on more then 2 types. Happy to be off those things.
Re: A new scan to detect and cure the commonest cause of high blood pressure
#87Tangent: "Commonest" is listed in the dictionary as an acceptable alternative to "most common", but I can't recall ever hearing it before. According to Ngram the latter is 20 times more common (or commoner, heh) but I would still have expected to remembering hearing it. Is this a UK vs. US thing?
Re: A new scan to detect and cure the commonest cause of high blood pressure
#88I had my left adrenal gland taken out in September. TL;DR - If you know someone that takes a lot of blood pressure medications and has for many years, have them see an endocrinologist and get them screened for hyperaldosteronism ( aka Conn's syndrome ). Kind of a crazy story. I've had blood pressure (BP) issues since my senior year of high school. 1996. Started taking my first medication then. Since then, I've had on…
Just a PSA (and no pun intended): in most places in the US these days, blood screening can be done without a doctor’s order and often more cheaply than what insurance will pay. Particularly if you pay direct, skip the doctor referral and order (and own) your own blood work. NOTE: this assumes you are not a nincompoop and enough of a research hound to understand what you’re ordering, how to understand the results in c…
I find it absolutely incredible that at any time in the U.S, under its laws, requesting something as fundamental as blood tests about YOUR OWN body from a private lab needed doctor permission. How would such rules even be justified? A person wanting to have their blood tested is not the same as someone trying to self-dose with possibly deadly medications.
Re: A new scan to detect and cure the commonest cause of high blood pressure
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just a PSA (and no pun intended): in most places in the US these days, blood screening can be done without a doctor’s order and often more cheaply than what insurance will pay. Particularly if you pay direct, skip the doctor referral and order (and own) your own blood work. NOTE: this assumes you are not a nincompoop and enough of a research hound to understand what you’re ordering, how to understand the results in c…
I find it absolutely incredible that at any time in the U.S, under its laws, requesting something as fundamental as blood tests about YOUR OWN body from a private lab needed doctor permission. How would such rules even be justified? A person wanting to have their blood tested is not the same as someone trying to self-dose with possibly deadly medications.
I think it was mostly a function of two things: regulatory capture by profit-incentivized doctors, and the labs not having (or wanting to have) consumer-oriented sales processes.
The internet has made the latter easier in a number of ways - making research easier for consumers to know what to order and interpret results, and offering COTS systems for commerce, document management, authentication, shopping carts, and inventory tracking.
I would bet that in most states, laws were less of an issue than the labs not wanting street-facing sales - same way some hardware companies only sell to distributors (i.e. street sales (and consumer support) are a pain in the ass vs curated partners).
Re: A new scan to detect and cure the commonest cause of high blood pressure
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Radiologist. It’s cool, it’s a nice study. The article definitely over hypes the “common cause of hypertension”. These lesions are rare. Most people with high blood pressure have it because of metabolic disease/chronic stress/lifestyle, and it can be managed with changes to diet exercise and meds. It is true that doing adrenal vein sampling is hard and not always successful. Having a protocol that can non-invasively…
> Most people with high blood pressure have it because of metabolic disease/chronic stress/lifestyle, and it can be managed with changes to diet exercise and meds. Do we know this though? If, as the article claims, the lesions were previously hard to detect, I would guess that most people with them never get diagnosed. I have high blood pressure and I've never been examined for those lesions.
Yeah there are other ways to tell if someone has aldosterone driven hypertension through blood work and urine tests. These other tests are to determine if surgery could fix the problem (tumor or unilateral vs bilateral abnormal aldosterone production).
Edited for clarity