Hypertension and Kidney Disease

By Jane Farrell

Can blood pressure treatment be harmful?

Reducing blood pressure is usually a good thing, but doctors have been concerned about intensive blood pressure lowering during hypertension therapy and the accompanying elevations of the molecule creatinine. Until the most recent research they worried that the creatinine elevations might be an indicator of kidney disease.

Signs of kidney disease may have been misleading for some patients.

Now, though, a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine says that the elevations are more likely to reflect a benign reduction in kidney blood flow that occurs naturally during the intensive blood pressure lowering treatment.

The findings represent a major advancement in the understanding of whether kidney tissue damage accompanies the diagnosis of chronic kidney disease (CKD) during hypertension therapy.

The study was conducted by researchers from the University of California San Diego and the University of California San Diego.