Gout Drug, Allopurinol Lowers Blood Pressure In Teens

A new American study found that gout drug, allopurinol may help in lowering the blood pressure in teenagers who suffer from hypertension or high blood pressure.

The medication, allopurinol helps in reducing the production of uric acid in body. The build-up of uric acid can lead to gout or kidney stones and the drug is commonly used to treat chronic gout (a form of arthritis). It is also used to treat patients with kidney stones and to decrease levels of uric acid in people who are receiving cancerdefine treatment.

Blood pressure is the pressure of blood in the arteries (blood vessels). An individual is said to have high blood pressure or hypertension when he has the blood pressure of 140/90 mmHg or above each time it is taken, while for children it is defined as being in the 90th percentile for their age. High BP is also known as a "silent killer" as many people may have no noticeable symptoms.

Lead author of the study, Daniel I. Feig, MD, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and his team conducted the study on group of 30 teens in between the ages of 11 and 17 years diagnosed with increased level of uric acid and hypertension or high blood pressure. The group was tested whether the treatment with drug allopurinol would lower the blood pressure in subjects.

The researchers divided the subjects in two groups; one group received 200 milligrams of allopurinol twice daily for four weeks while another group received a placebo twice a day for 28 days.

The team found that the medication was successful in lowering the blood pressure to normal; in fact 20 of the 30 subjects who received the grout drug achieved normal blood pressure levels while on the other hand only 1 in 30 subjects achieved normal blood pressure while taking the placebo.

The authors concluded, "The results of this study represent a potentially new therapeutic approach, that of control of a biochemical cause of hypertension, rather than nonspecifically lowering elevated blood pressure. Although not representing a fully developed strategy, this study raises an alternative strategy that may prove to be more effective than currently available options."

Also, study author, Daniel I. Feig said,” I really don't want this [study] to be taken to suggest that allopurinol is a good alternative for treatment of blood pressure in children or adults." The scientists feel that the medication has too many serious side effects such as gastrointestinal complaints and Stevens-Johnson syndrome (a severe allergic reaction) and hence is not suitable for long term use in adolescents.

The study appears in the August 27 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

A previous study published in the August 19 issue of the journal Circulation found that healthy adolescents with poor sleep habits are at an increased risk for pre-hypertension and high blood pressure.

Nearly seventy million people in the US and nearly half of people above 65 years and 1 in three middle-aged people in Britain have high blood pressure, which leads to increased risk of heart failure or heart related diseases.
According to the American Heart Association, heart disease claims life of an individual in every 37 seconds and is the leading cause of death in the US.

While another 70 million people in the United States have the condition of 'high-normal' or 'pre-hypertensive' blood pressure levels (120/80 mm Hg to 130/85 mm Hg) and 90% of these people will develop hypertension by age 65.