This is a phenomenon known to doctors and their patients with hypertension: certain antihypertensive medications destroy over time the ability of the kidneys to properly filter and purify the blood. However, the exact way in which these drugs harm the kidneys remained unknown.
Recently, American researchers published a study highlighting the mechanism behind this phenomenon. Their work was published in the journal Circulation Research (Source 1).
The team reports having discovered that certain antihypertensive drugs (mainly renin-angiotensin system inhibitors) somehow reprogram the kidneys, so that they do something other than their important job of filtering the blood. The kidneys thus begin to produce more renin, an enzymenerve endings develop excessively, the cells lining the blood vessels of the kidneys become too large, inflammation sets in… “Unable to purify the blood of its impurities, the kidney [est ainsi] transformed into a “pathological neuroimmune endocrine organ””, deplore the researchers.
More specifically, the researchers observed “a excessive stimulation of renin-producing cells in the kidney”, which causes the cells to return to an invasive and embryonic state.
A discovery that will help find solutions
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