Vaccine shows promise in controlling hypertension

[Guest guest]

Yikes! They have no clue what they are doing..................

" The vaccine works like this:

Dress up a synthetic version of angiotensin II to look like a virus.

Inject it into the bloodstream.

The immune system, fooled by the fake angiotensin II, will mistakenly

attack the real thing as if it were a virus. Y-shaped antibodies lock onto

angiotensin II so that it will no longer fit into its receptors. "

Sheri

http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080212/LIFE03/802120

313/1004

Vaccine shows promise in controlling hypertension

Worek, 56, a retired safety engineer from Channahon, Ill., says he's

fed up with the fistful of pills he takes daily for high blood pressure and

other heart ailments. " Nine pills every morning, " laments Worek. " Nine

pills at night. "

Eighteen pills a day are more than anyone would want to swallow, but Worek

knows they help keep him alive. What bothers him more than having to take

so many pills is how often they slip his mind. " All those pills, " he says.

" I lay them out, and I still forget them. "

Such forgetfulness can increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. Yet

studies show that only about half of people with high blood pressure follow

doctors' orders. The Swiss biotech firm Cytos wants to make it easier for

patients by reducing their dependence on pills. How? With a vaccine.

Vaccinating someone against a chronic illness, rather than an infectious

disease like measles, isn't as farfetched as it sounds. Many researchers at

Cytos and elsewhere view vaccines as potential low-cost treatments for a

variety of ailments, ranging from arthritis to cancer, from smoking to

psoriasis, from asthma to Alzheimer's disease.

How would it work?

The " trick, " says Bachmann, Cytos' chief scientific officer, is to

pick a likely target for vaccination -- usually a protein that plays a key

role in causing the disease -- and " make it look like a virus. "

In high blood pressure, the target is called angiotensin II. Angiotensin II

is a powerful hormone that acts like a blood pressure switch. When it docks

with a special receptor in blood vessels, it causes the blood vessels to

constrict. Angiotensin II can be a lifesaver when someone is dehydrated or

goes into shock, because it sustains blood pressure, but it is also an

obvious target for the vaccines and blood pressure drugs like ACE

inhibitors.

The vaccine works like this:

Dress up a synthetic version of angiotensin II to look like a virus.

Inject it into the bloodstream.

The immune system, fooled by the fake angiotensin II, will mistakenly

attack the real thing as if it were a virus. Y-shaped antibodies lock onto

angiotensin II so that it will no longer fit into its receptors.

The approach is already generating controversy. " There's no question that

it's an innovative approach, " says Franz Messerli of St. Luke's-Roosevelt

Hospital in New York. " The fact that it's innovative doesn't necessarily

mean that it's practical. "

Critics worry that the immune response will be fleeting and that patients

will continually need boosters, creating a different kind of compliance

problem for people who don't like getting shots. Doctors also worry that

blocking such an important protein might cause unpredictable harm. " If you

run into trouble with medication, you can stop the medication, " Messerli

says. " You can't stop this. "

But the doctor who pioneered angiotensin II measurement and whom Cytos

tapped to lead the vaccine trials says he's satisfied the approach holds

promise.

" I was skeptical at first, " says Juerg Nussberger of the University

Hospital of the Canton of Vaud in Lausanne, Switzerland. " Then I did a

study in rats. In rats, it worked. I said, 'I was wrong. You were right.' "

Results in humans look just as good, so far. Nussberger reported at an

American Heart Association scientific meeting in November that a study of

72 patients showed that the vaccine was safe, well-tolerated and generated

a potent immune response. " What came out was a tremendous difference in

blood pressure that I would not have anticipated, " he says.

Three shots over 12 weeks reduced systolic pressure (the top number) by 5.6

millimeters of mercury. They lowered diastolic blood pressure (the bottom

number) by 2.8 millimeters, roughly equivalent to the drop produced by a

drug in someone with mild hypertension, he reported. The systolic reading

reflects the pressure when the heart clenches to pump blood; the diastolic

measurement gauges the pressure when the heart relaxes.

What the researchers found most encouraging, Nussberger says, is that

reductions held in the morning, when blood pressure goes up to prepare for

awakening.

" That's so you don't fall down when you stand up, " says Bakris, an

expert on hypertension at the University of Chicago and a board member of

the American Society of Hypertension.

Other solutions

Yet despite its early success, the vaccine isn't likely to be the sole

answer to high blood pressure, Bakris says, because high blood pressure is

a complicated disease.

Bakris says the vaccine is likely to be most useful early in the course of

the disease, before too many things go wrong. " In the advanced stages of

the disease, " he says, " it may substitute for one (high blood pressure

medication), maybe two. "

Nussberger says the jury's still out on how the vaccine might fit into

blood-pressure treatment plans:

" We're at the very beginning. "

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Sheri Nakken, former R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales UK

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