Word: paged
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Brazilian Dr. Lauro Sollero studies how one billionth of a gram of serotonin (a powerful, blood pressure-raising chemical isolated by Page and colleagues) makes a strip of rat uterus contract, and the ways in which serotonin and other body chemicals cancel each other's effects. Dr. James McCubbin is probing breakdowns in nerve impulses that throw blood-pressure control out of kilter. Famed Internist Willem Kolff, who invented the artificial kidney when his native Netherlands was under Nazi occupation, has developed a $14 model in a gallon can. Dr. Page himself spends two or three days a week...
However far apart they seem, says Dr. Page, the pure science researcher and the bedside physician must be brought together, as they are in his own laboratory. From 20 years of personal study and correlating his views with those of other researchers, Dr. Page sums up: "Hypertension is not a single disease. It may be almost as variable as the many different forms of cancer. Neither can it have a single cause. There are at least eight mechanisms in the body operating to maintain an even blood pressure, and these are all interrelated. The balance of one cannot be upset...
Treatments. For the relatively mild case of hypertension, Page and colleagues prescribe the obvious-massive doses of moderation. First, they reassure the patient by explaining what they can do about his disease. Then they advise him to do what he can to avoid fatigue and excitement. He should spend ten hours in bed and take short naps, often. Every extra pound of flesh on the patient means work for the heart, so-reduce. Moderation is also prescribed in smoking and drinking, in exercise and sexual activity...
...more severe cases the Cleveland Clinic doctors have a growing list of hopeful treatments. And in some victims, at least, malignant hypertension can actually be reversed. For years Dr. Page used kidney extracts, which helped some patients, and pioneered with fever treatments which had similar moderate success. Not until the spring of 1951 was a drug found to control malignant hypertension. This was hydralazine. In quick succession came a series of hexamethonium compounds (followed by the related pentolinium) and more recently reserpine...
...link between salt and blood pressure is not fully understood. Many doctors believe that salt content must drop to an infinitesimal one-tenth of a teaspoonful per day. This can be achieved only by an extreme regimen like the famed "rice diet." But even on this, says Dr. Page, a mere 25% of the patients get their blood pressure down to near-normal levels. So: "Whether one wishes the psychic mortification of the rice diet or the dubious gratification of a planned low-salt diet is up to the individual. So many good low-salt diets and foods...