Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 12, Issue 13, 2006

This issue of Current Pharmaceutical Design, for which I have the honour to be Executive Guest Editor, addresses topical issues relating to the clinical management and treatment of hypertension, its pathophysiology and the clinical use of antihypertensive drugs. MacFadyen et al. [1] discusses the perception of symptoms in hypertensive patients and the relevance to the application of anti- hypertensive drug therapy. L Read More

While symptoms are common during the detection and treatment of hypertensive patients it is rarely the case that either uncomplicated essential hypertension (of whatever severity) or treatment presents insurmountable problems. Unfortunately they frequently result in changes in effective therapy or encourage clinicians and prescribers to settle with altered and inadequate treatment goals. This review considers the associa Read More

Population studies have identified diabetes mellitus as a risk factor for cardiac and vascular events, with a common association with hypertension. Observational studies have consistently demonstrated blood glucose as a continuous cardiovascular risk factor. Experimental studies suggest that elevated blood glucose, through a range of biochemical pathways can promote atherogenesis and increase the tendency for thrombosis Read More

Hypertension is a well known risk factor for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events such as heart attacks and strokes. In addition, it is associated with earlier changes in organ systems in the body, such as left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), proteinuria and renal failure, retinopathy and vascular dementia which are grouped under the term "target organ damage"(TOD). There are many processes involved in the path Read More

Hypertension is associated with an increase in cardiovascular events. Pathophysiological mechanisms of this include endothelial damage / dysfunction, inflammatory activation, insulin resistance, platelet activation and alterations in the coagulation cascade leading to a prothrombotic state. Dyslipidaemia acts synergistically with hypertension in increasing cardiovascular risk. HMG CoA reductase inhibitors (statins) are li Read More

Our ability to assess individual patient cardiovascular risk is based on "traditional" risk factors including patient's characteristics (age, sex and body mass index), hypertension, diabetes, smoking, lipid profile and family history of premature coronary disease. These factors are important for the clinician in order to calculate risk and initiate treatment in both primary and secondary settings. As the morbidity and mortality from vas Read More

The risk factors for hypertension are only partly known, and accounts for the some of the deficiencies in current primary prevention strategies and in the design of new drugs for the management of this common condition. Recently, chronic low grade low-grade inflammation has been identified as an integral part in the pathogenesis of vascular disease. Of note, inflammation may also be implicated in the development of hyperte Read More

Whey is a natural by-product of cheese making process. Bovine milk has about 3.5 % protein, 80 % of which are caseins and the remaining 20 % are whey proteins. Whey proteins contain all the essential amino acids and have the highest protein quality rating among other proteins. Advances in processing technologies have led to the industrial production of different products with varying protein contents from liquid whey. The Read More

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a devastating disease, predominantely affecting young people. Although the prognosis for TBI victims has improved in recent years, many survivors of TBI suffer from emotional, cognitive and motor disturbances and a decreased quality of life. In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in the number of pharmacological targets evaluated in clinically-relevant experimental TBI models, showing i Read More