Hypertension treatment proves 88 percent effective in Brazilian study

Hypertension treatment proves 88 percent effective in Brazilian study

Sometimes a promising treatment arises from the strangest circumstances. Recently, the discovery of a new hormone and the contents of a stray pamphlet from Vancouver’s Chinatown were the unlikely components that led a Yale-trained pharmacologist to a discovery that could eliminate your need for prescription hypertension drugs.

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is one of the most common forms of cardiovascular disease in North America. Roughly 25 percent of the population has it, and the condition can lead to serious medical problems, including stroke, renal failure, arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), heart attack, and congestive heart failure. Odds are, if you or someone you know has been diagnosed with high blood pressure, the doctor has recommended certain mainstays of conventional cardiovascular treatment–such as dietary modifications and prescription drugs.

But this new discovery may be able to dramatically enhance the positive effects of dietary changes in order to regulate blood pressure, and potentially reduce or even eliminate the need for prescription drugs in people with salt-sensitive hypertension.
Canadian lab uncovers calcium’s role in high blood pressure

For years, physicians believed that hypertension was a single disease with an unknown cause. Up until the 1980s, roughly 90 percent of all cases were listed as “essential hypertension,” meaning the cause of the heightened blood pressure was unknown.

Eventually, however, researchers realized that significant numbers of hypertension patients shared certain characteristics. A particularly large number (about 40 percent of all cases) suffered from salt-sensitive blood pressure along with low levels of a substance called renin, a kidney enzyme that plays a major role in easing high blood pressure. They also shared a peculiar condition-they all had low blood calcium levels but elevated levels of parathyroid hormone (the hormone responsible for maintaining healthy blood calcium levels). Researchers speculated that some compound in the body was inhibiting the normal function of the hormone and began searching for it.

At the University of Alberta in western Canada, Dr. Peter Pang-a Yale-trained pharmacologist and head of U of A’s department of physiology-led a group of researchers in an effort to find the cause of this type of hypertension. Through a series of tests on laboratory animals, they determined that a second hormone produced by the parathyroid gland was depressing calcium levels in the blood and causing high blood pressure.1 They named the hormone parathyroid hypertensive factor or PHF. Essentially, PHF causes calcium, which should circulate in the bloodstream, to build up inside cells. These calcium-heavy cells place increased pressure on arteries which increases blood pressure inside the arteries. In fact, one of the major categories of prescription drugs used to treat hypertension are calcium channel blockers that reduce the amount of calcium ions passing into the cells.

Once they realized what was causing the “unexplained” 40 percent of all hypertension cases–and high intracellular calcium, scientists had a foundation to search for new remedies.

Through his company, CV Technologies-a research and development company focused on using traditional Chinese and herbal medicines to produce modern nutraceuticals-Dr. Pang developed Pressure FX specifically to address hypertension caused by PHF. Its components are unusual, and the clinical research behind them is still sparse. But Dr. Pang asserts that it is an effective treatment for salt-sensitive hypertension, and his claim has been backed up by several studies.

Tibetan caterpillar mushroom helps stimulate drop in blood pressure

Practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine have used Cordyceps Sinensis for centuries to improve lung and kidney function, to suppress coughs, and to regulate blood coagulation. According to reports of traditional usage, it has helped ease respiratory diseases, treat arrhythmias, and reduce high blood pressure.2 Cordyceps, one of the two components of Pressure FX, is a fungus found in the highlands of China, Tibet, and Nepal (at elevations ranging from 3,500 to 10,000 feet above sea level). It is commonly known as caterpillar mushroom.

Researchers at the University of Alberta tested Cordyceps’ potential for lowering blood pressure by injecting various solutions (dosage ranged from 0.03mg/kg to 10 mg/kg) into anesthetized rats, then measuring the blood pressure in a tail artery. The experiments produced dose-dependent reductions in blood pressure. However, the effect was often fleeting-beginning within 15 seconds of treatment and ending barely a minute later.3

Scientists at the National Research Institute of Chinese Medicine in Taiwan achieved better results using higher doses of Cordyceps. They injected anesthetized rats with doses of 8, 16, 24, or 32 mg/kg. Not only did the treatment reduce blood pressure in a dose dependent manner, but the effect continued for 45 minutes.4

A cancer treatment’s hidden heart potential uncovered in Chinatown

Shark cartilage, the other component of Pressure FX, is more widely known for its ability to inhibit the growth of tumors. And even Dr. Pang admits that it’s not the first thing he would expect to include in a hypertension formula. “I would have never suspected something like shark cartilage, or added it to my mainstream research,” he commented, “but serendipity plays a role in science.”

Dr. Pang was in the midst of searching for a treatment for PHF-induced hypertension when a friend showed him a pamphlet he’d found in Vancouver’s Chinatown describing shark cartilage’s potential for treating diabetes, colon cancer, and breast cancer-conditions that Dr. Pang had already linked to excess intracellular calcium and possibly to PHF. With this knowledge as a base, he decided to test shark cartilage for hypertension.

Pang’s researchers injected shark cartilage into spontaneously hypertensive rats. When they did, the animals’ blood pressure dropped. The treatment also helped normalize the rate of calcium buildup in the animals’ cells.5 The researchers also tested shark cartilage on rats with normal blood pressure. When they injected the healthy rats with PHF, the rats’ blood pressure rose. However, when they gave the rats an injection of shark cartilage first, then gave them PHF, the rats’ blood pressure didn’t rise.

Although the exact mechanism that enables shark cartilage to control blood pressure isn’t known, Dr. Pang theorizes that “it is possible-I must stress possible-that shark cartilage contains something that antagonizes PHF.”
High blood pressure corrected in 88 percent of patients

Since results from intravenous applications of nutrients and therapies are often different from those obtained by oral administration, more research on shark cartilage’s effects on hypertension when taken orally was necessary. A group of Brazilian physicians tested the actual supplement form of Pressure FX in a clinical trial involving 102 hypertensive patients (74 with mild hypertension, 28 with moderate hypertension).6 The researchers tracked each patient’s condition for three to 12 months. Each subject took one to three Pressure FX capsules daily. Before they started taking the supplement, however, subjects received other forms of treatment. They followed researchers’ instructions to modify their lifestyle, including instructions to increase their consumption of fruit, vegetables, and legumes; to decrease their consumption of foods linked to lipid oxidation; and to take calcium, magnesium, and potassium supplements (which are commonly recommended to ease high blood pressure). In addition, 87 subjects received chelation therapy (10 to 20 treatments each).

The results were dramatic. Before the study began, the group’s mean blood pressure was 171.42 over 107.95. After treatment it was 126.13 over 83.36. The Brazilian researchers reported that between 50 and 60 percent of subjects responded to the lifestyle modifications and mineral supplementation alone. When Pressure FX was added to the treatment regimen, the number of subjects showing significantly reduced blood pressure jumped to 88 percent.
Of the 84 subjects who were taking hypertension drugs prior to the study, 63 were able to stop medication and maintain normal blood pressure with Pressure FX.
Pressure FX eases hypertension whenother treatments fail

In a recent article in the Townsend Newsletter for Doctors and Patients, Nelson Kraucak, M.D., ABFP, reported on his experience using Pressure FX at the Life Family Practice Center for Complementary Medicine in Lady Lake, Florida. Dr. Kraucak advised patients who weren’t responding to other treatments (such as magnesium, L-carnitine, and coenzyme Q10) to take one capsule of Pressure FX three times a day. He reported the treatment was effective in 65 percent of his patients.

The twists of fate that led Dr. Pang to develop this unique formula could mean a world of difference for the millions of people suffering from hypertension. Pressure FX appears to be a safe, effective treatment for regulating blood pressure levels. CV Technologies assures us it conducts assays on each batch of supplements to ensure they remain consistent.

Could diabetes and cancer be the result of “excessive PHF syndrome?”

Although researchers originally linked PHF to hypertension only, subsequent research has suggested that excessive amounts of parathyroid hypertensive factor may contribute to other diseases.

“By the time we got the mechanism of PHF studied, we realized that it was not just a hypertension hormone. It was an intracellular calcium regulating hormone,” says Dr. Pang. “That is very, very significant, because a lot of diseases and health problems are related to abnormal cellular calcium regulation.”

People with type II diabetes often have heightened cellular calcium levels-a situation that disables their insulin receptors and exacerbates the disease. Intracellular calcium also affects mitosis (cell division), and very preliminary research suggests that PHF may play a role in some cancers. A small-scale study conducted by Dr. Pang and his associates showed that 60 percent of breast cancer patients and 70 percent of colon cancer patients have elevated PHF levels.7

Dr. Pang is currently investigating PHF’s links to other diseases, and the possibility that PHF treatments could prove effective against ailments other than hypertension.