If you have hypertension (systolic blood pressure of 140 mmHg or more and diastolic blood pressure of 90 mmHg or more) it should be adequately treated with approved drugs/medications and by dietary modifications and lifestyle changes. If yo have pre-hypertension (systolic blood pressure of 121-139 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure of 81-89 mmHg) it is time you adopt healthy lifestyle and healthy eating habits to prevent pre-hypertension from becoming a hypertension.

Generally goal of treatment of hypertension is to bring blood pressure to 120/80 mmHg if you have no complication and you are healthy. The goal of treatment of hypertension may be different for different individuals, e.g. if you are an elderly person the target blood pressure may be much higher than 120/80 mmHg (i.e. 140/90 mmHg).

For all patients of hypertension, lifestyle changes and dietary changes are essential for optimal management. Without lifestyle and dietary changes towards healthier side, the management of hypertension may be incomplete.

Medications form the mainstay of management of hypertension, because with lifestyle changes and dietary changes it may not be possible to bring blood pressure to the target level.

Commonly used anti-hypertensive drugs:

1. Thiazide diuretics:

Diuretics (commonly known as water pills) are commonly used for treatment of hypertension. Hydrochlorothiazide is most commonly used for this purpose. It is one of the first line medications for treatment of hypertension. These drugs reduce water and sodium content and improves elasticity of blood vessels.

2. Beta-blockers:

These drugs reduce workload of heart by reducing heart rate and force of contraction of heart. They also reduce sympathetic activity thereby reduce workload of heart. Examples of beta-blockers are atenolol, metoprolol, bisoprolol etc. If used alone they may not work well in blacks and should be combined with diuretics (Hydrochlorothiazide).

3. Calcium channel blockers:

These drugs helps in relaxing the muscles of blood vessels (arteries mainly) and thereby reduce blood pressure. Some of these drugs reduce heart rate also. Examples of calcium channel blockers are amlodipine, nifedipine, verapamil, diltiazem etc.

4. ACE (Angiotensin-converting enzyme) inhibitors:

These drugs relax blood vessels by inhibiting natural chemical that constricts blood vessels, i.e. angiotensin-II. Examples of ACE inhibitors are enalapril, lisinopril, parindopril, ramipril, captopril etc.

5. Angiotensin receptor blockers:

These drugs act by blocking the action of angiotensin-II (constriction of blood vessels) at receptor level. Examples of Angiotensin receptor blockers are losartan, telmisartan etc.

There are also other anti-hypertensive drugs which are used for treatment of hypertension in special situations such as pregnancy, hypertensive emergencies (severe rise in blood pressure, e.g. systolic pressure of over 200 mmHg and need immediate medical intervention to reduce blood pressure) etc.

Centrally acting agents:

These agents prevent signals from brain that cause heart rate to increase and blood vessels to contract, e.g. methyledopa, which is commonly used to treat hypertension during pregnancy.

Vasodilators:

These drugs cause dilatation of blood vessels thereby reduce blood pressure. These agents are used for treating hypertensive emergencies. Example is sodium nitropruside.

Alpha-blockers:

These agents cause dilatation of blood vessels by reducing nerve impulse to blood vessels. Examples of alpha-blockers is prazosin, terazosin etc.

Image courtesy of scottchan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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A prefectural officer carries a chicken on a poultry farm on October 15 on the outskirts of Kathmandu, Nepal, where chickens suspected of being infected with bird flu were found.

Prakash Mathema /AFP/Getty Images

A prefectural officer carries a chicken on a poultry farm on October 15 on the outskirts of Kathmandu, Nepal, where chickens suspected of being infected with bird flu were found.

Prakash Mathema /AFP/Getty Images

On Tuesday, the National Institutes of Health in Maryland is holding a second day of talks about whether and how to continue funding some controversial scientific experiments.

Back in January, virologists agreed to temporarily stop research that was creating new forms of bird flu, because critics argued that the work was too dangerous. NIH officials are now seeking input from scientists and the public about how to proceed.

Scientists, national security experts and public health workers have come from all over â€" including places like the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Italy, Indonesia and Vietnam â€" to discuss thorny issues raised by the research.

"The subject of this meeting literally affects every individual in the world," noted Harvey Fineberg, president of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, who is helping to run the conference. "Every citizen in every country has a stake in the research that will or will not go forward with respect to these highly pathogenic agents."

These pathogenic agents are altered forms of the bird flu virus known as H5N1. H5N1 is widespread in poultry in parts of Asia and the Middle East, but it rarely infects people. Over half of those who are known to have gotten sick, however, have died.

Public health experts worry that the virus might mutate, begin spreading from person to person, and start a pandemic. Last year, NIH-funded researchers showed that certain genetic mutations could indeed make H5N1 spread easily between ferrets, the lab stand-in for people.

When word got out that scientists had created these mutant viruses, there was an uproar.

"There was an explosion of reaction, sometimes bordering on the very extreme," recalled Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. One New York Times editorial called it "An Engineered Doomsday."

So flu virologists around the world agreed to temporarily hold off on this kind of research. But some, like Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, thinks it's essential to get back to work.

Fouchier says what is learned from this research could help public health experts do things like spot an emerging pandemic, or develop vaccines. In his view, it's irresponsible to not follow-up on his initial experiments.

"All of this research is aimed to prevent flu pandemics or to mitigate their impact if they cannot be prevented altogether," Fouchier says.

Others are not so convinced, and say that if an engineered bird flu virus fell into the wrong hands or escaped the lab, it could kill millions.

"Once novel flu gets going in the population it's unlikely we could stop it," says Thomas Inglesby, with the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Inglesby thinks the moratorium should continue, but that if the NIH decides that it will fund more research on altered forms of H5N1 that everyone should acknowledge the risks.

"I think we should also proceed in unprecedented biosafety conditions and with international agreements on how to proceed," he says.

Officials have drafted a set of proposed criteria to help them decide whether and when to fund this kind of research in the future. For example, a proposed experiment would have to address a scientific question with high significance to public health, and there would have to be no feasible alternative methods to address the same question in a less-risky way.

One of the reasons NIH is holding this conference is to see what people think of that proposed framework.

This question of the moratorium can't be decided at this meeting because not all of the researchers who signed onto it are funded by NIH. But what the NIH says and does is influential, so what comes of this meeting and how it is incorporated into NIH decision-making could be important.

On the agenda for Tuesday is a discussion of what kinds of lab safety measures should be in place to do this kind of work. Some experts say it should be restricted to the most secure labs possible. Others say that would needlessly slow down research that's vital for understanding the threat of naturally-occurring flu pandemics.

A video of the meeting will be posted online for those who could not attend, and NIH officials say they'll be accepting emailed comments on their proposed framework for decision-making until January 10, 2013.

If you have hypertension (systolic blood pressure of 140 mmHg or more and diastolic blood pressure of 90 mmHg or more) it should be adequately treated with approved drugs/medications and by dietary modifications and lifestyle changes. If yo have pre-hypertension (systolic blood pressure of 121-139 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure of 81-89 mmHg) it is time you adopt healthy lifestyle and healthy eating habits to prevent pre-hypertension from becoming a hypertension.

Generally goal of treatment of hypertension is to bring blood pressure to 120/80 mmHg if you have no complication and you are healthy. The goal of treatment of hypertension may be different for different individuals, e.g. if you are an elderly person the target blood pressure may be much higher than 120/80 mmHg (i.e. 140/90 mmHg).

For all patients of hypertension, lifestyle changes and dietary changes are essential for optimal management. Without lifestyle and dietary changes towards healthier side, the management of hypertension may be incomplete.

Medications form the mainstay of management of hypertension, because with lifestyle changes and dietary changes it may not be possible to bring blood pressure to the target level.

Commonly used anti-hypertensive drugs:

1. Thiazide diuretics:

Diuretics (commonly known as water pills) are commonly used for treatment of hypertension. Hydrochlorothiazide is most commonly used for this purpose. It is one of the first line medications for treatment of hypertension. These drugs reduce water and sodium content and improves elasticity of blood vessels.

2. Beta-blockers:

These drugs reduce workload of heart by reducing heart rate and force of contraction of heart. They also reduce sympathetic activity thereby reduce workload of heart. Examples of beta-blockers are atenolol, metoprolol, bisoprolol etc. If used alone they may not work well in blacks and should be combined with diuretics (Hydrochlorothiazide).

3. Calcium channel blockers:

These drugs helps in relaxing the muscles of blood vessels (arteries mainly) and thereby reduce blood pressure. Some of these drugs reduce heart rate also. Examples of calcium channel blockers are amlodipine, nifedipine, verapamil, diltiazem etc.

4. ACE (Angiotensin-converting enzyme) inhibitors:

These drugs relax blood vessels by inhibiting natural chemical that constricts blood vessels, i.e. angiotensin-II. Examples of ACE inhibitors are enalapril, lisinopril, parindopril, ramipril, captopril etc.

5. Angiotensin receptor blockers:

These drugs act by blocking the action of angiotensin-II (constriction of blood vessels) at receptor level. Examples of Angiotensin receptor blockers are losartan, telmisartan etc.

There are also other anti-hypertensive drugs which are used for treatment of hypertension in special situations such as pregnancy, hypertensive emergencies (severe rise in blood pressure, e.g. systolic pressure of over 200 mmHg and need immediate medical intervention to reduce blood pressure) etc.

Centrally acting agents:

These agents prevent signals from brain that cause heart rate to increase and blood vessels to contract, e.g. methyledopa, which is commonly used to treat hypertension during pregnancy.

Vasodilators:

These drugs cause dilatation of blood vessels thereby reduce blood pressure. These agents are used for treating hypertensive emergencies. Example is sodium nitropruside.

Alpha-blockers:

These agents cause dilatation of blood vessels by reducing nerve impulse to blood vessels. Examples of alpha-blockers is prazosin, terazosin etc.

Image courtesy of scottchan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Related posts:

Know What Hypertension is

What are the Complications of Hypertension?

What is Hypertension or High Blood Pressure? My Explanation

Points to Remember by Hypertensive Person

What type of Diet should be taken in Hypertension

Diet and High Blood Pressure

Are You at Risk Of Hypertension? Find Out

Dietary Advise for Hypertension

Diet to be avoided in Hypertension

Know About DASH Diet

Coronaviruses can cause a mild cold or severe pneumonia-like symptoms.

Dr. Gopal Murti/Visuals Unlimited/Corbis

Coronaviruses can cause a mild cold or severe pneumonia-like symptoms.

Dr. Gopal Murti/Visuals Unlimited/Corbis

The World Health Organization says a new coronavirus has killed two people in Jordan â€" the third country where the novel microbe has been traced.

That brings lab-confirmed cases to nine, with five fatalities.

The latest cases are actually the oldest known so far. They push the SARS-like virus's timeline three months back from the first reported case involving a 60-year-old man who died in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, last June.

Jordan's cases were found through new testing of blood and tissue samples from patients in a cluster of pneumonias of unknown origin that occurred last April at a hospital in Zarqa, near Jordan's capital of Amman.

Until now known cases have occurred further south in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The Jordan cases are also significant because they're part of an 11-person cluster of pneumonia that involved seven nurses and a doctor.

It's unclear whether either of the two new SARS-like cases involved health care workers, or whether the new coronavirus has been ruled out yet as the cause of the other pneumonias in that outbreak.

But whenever disease-trackers see clusters of infection involving caregivers, that raises their suspicion that a microbe has spread from person to person â€" most likely from patient to caregiver.

It doesn't have to mean that. Health care workers and patients could have acquired the infection from a shared environmental source.

But if the new virus is able to spread from person to person, even if inefficiently, that raises the possibility it can become more mobile, moving through human populations.

"Even if the cases in Jordan were human-to-human spread â€" and we don't know that â€" it wasn't sustained," WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told the Canadian Press.

The possibility of person-to-person spread is also suggested by a cluster of coronavirus pneumonias reported on November 23 involving members of the same household in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Four men in that family fell ill with respiratory symptoms and two tested positive for the new coronavirus. The two others, one of whom died, are considered probable cases.

No one thinks that the new coronavirus is as big a threat as its notorious cousin, the one that precipitated the SARS epidemic in 2003 that quickly spread around the world and killed 916 people.

For one thing, health officials haven't found any cases of the new coronavirus among the millions of pilgrims who attended this fall's annual Hajj in Mecca, near the place where the Saudi man died in June.

On the other hand, nobody knows how big a problem the Arabian coronavirus may be â€" or even whether it is likely to be restricted to Arabia.

The WHO is urging medical and public health workers around the world to investigate clusters of unexplained pneumonia for a possible link to the new virus. It isn't calling for individual cases to be tested.

The agency "is convinced that whatever the source of the virus is, it is probably not unique to those countries," science journalist Helen Branswell writes in Scientific American.

Genetic testing suggests that the new virus is most closely related to one in bats. But that doesn't necessarily mean all human cases had direct contact with bats. There may be an intermediate carrier, and victims might have eaten food contaminated with dust, urine or feces from an infected animal.

At this point, it appears that researchers will find more human cases of the new virus. Each case, or cluster of cases, increases the chance that the source and mode of transmission will be found.

That effort will be accelerated by the development of a blood test for the virus, which Branswell reports may come in the next month or so. Right now diagnosis relies on a gene-amplification test, called PCR, which is cumbersome and sometimes hard to interpret. And it can't tell if someone had been exposed to the virus in the past but recovered.