Harvard Health Content API

Race affects which drug combinations will control high blood pressure best for each person, new research finds. And a hormone called renin may help to guide decisions about the best drugs for each patient. These are among the results of new studies in the American Journal of Hypertension. Renin levels help determine whether high blood pressure is caused mainly by squeezing of blood vessel walls or by too much fluid. One study of 954 people focused on renin. People with low levels responded well to diuretics. These drugs remove extra fluid in the blood. But people with high renin levels did better with ACE inhibitors. These drugs relax blood vessels. Another study found that blacks had low renin levels and did better with diuretics. South Asians had good results with an ACE inhibitor and a drug called a calcium channel blocker. Blacks did worse with this combination.

A new, faster test can reveal if a person has tuberculosis (TB). It also can tell if the disease is resistant to antibiotics. The new test takes less than two hours. The old one could take up to a week. The old test also misses cases of TB, so sick people are mistakenly told they are healthy. In a study of 1,730 people, the new test identified 98% of TB cases. It also identified 98% of the cases that were resistant to rifampin, a common drug used to treat TB. Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection. It causes more than 1.8 million deaths each year. The new test is not the same as the skin test. The skin test is done to see if someone has ever been exposed to TB. The new test would be done in people who have TB symptoms. The study about the test appeared in the September 1 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The Associated Press wrote about it the same day.

Women with BRCA gene mutations can benefit from having healthy ovaries removed. So says the largest study of its kind, published September 1 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Women with these gene mutations have 10 times the risk of ovarian cancer, compared with the general population. The study included about 2,500 women. About 4 in 10 had their ovaries removed. Over the next four years, these women had lower risks of ovarian and breast cancer, compared with similar women who did not have the surgery. They also had a lower risk of dying. The Associated Press wrote about the study September 1.

A new study suggests that African-Americans have almost three times the risk of having a heart attack after having a drug-coated stent placed to treat their chest pain, compared to other races. Bare metal stents seem to be safer options. The medical journal Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association published the study on August 30.

While colon cancer rates have not changed over the past several decades among people under age 40, rates of new rectal cancer have increased steadily, says a new study. This trend was seen is all races and in both sexes. Researchers looked at colon and rectal cancer rates from 1973 to 2005. They used data from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results cancer registry. The rate of rectal cancer diagnosis rose 2.6% overall. Between 1984 and 2005, it rose 3.8% per year. The journal Cancer published the study online on August 23.

Pregnant women taking a common antiviral drug for herpes do not have babies with more birth defects, says a large Danish study. Researchers looked at births in Denmark from 1996 to 2008. The study included about 840,000 births. Of those, 1,800 women took acyclovir during the first trimester of pregnancy. This is a common drug prescribed to treat outbreaks of genital herpes. Babies born to these women were not at greater risk of birth defects, compared with babies born to women not taking the drug. Two other drugs are sometimes used to treat genital herpes. Taking these drugs did not appear to put pregnant women at risk for birth defects, but the numbers were small. The study was published August 25 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. HealthDay News wrote about it August 24.

People with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes are more likely to develop brain plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease, says a new Japanese study. The study included 135 elderly people. Researchers checked the participants’ blood-sugar levels for type 2 diabetes several times during the study, and looked for signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Over the next 10 to 15 years, 16% of the people developed Alzheimer’s. Autopsies found plaques in all of the brains of the people who died of Alzheimer’s and 65% of the other people. Researchers found plaques in 72% of people with insulin resistance but in only 62% of people without insulin resistance. The study appeared in the journal Neurology. HealthDay News and Reuters wrote about it August 25.

Diabetics with certain forms of a gene are at much greater risk for kidney disease, a Chinese study has found. Researchers looked at four areas of the gene for protein kinase C-beta. These areas varied among people. Certain gene sequences in these areas put people at higher risk for kidney disease. Over 8 years, people with four “risky” areas developed kidney disease at almost 5 times the rate of people with zero or one “risky” area. The study included more than 2,000 people. Results were published in the August 25 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. MedPage Today wrote about it August 24.

A vaccine for hepatitis E appears safe and effective, says a study. It included more than 100,000 people. Half received the hepatits E vaccine. The other half got a placebo. In the following year, no one in the vaccine group got hepatitis E. Fifteen people in the placebo group got it. Hepatitis E is one of five known forms of a virus that affects the liver. The disease is usually mild, but can be dangerous in pregnant women and people with liver problems. The study was published in The Lancet on August 22. Reuters wrote about it the same day.