New findings may help explain high blood pressure in pregnancy
October 31, 2011 in Obstetrics & gynaecology
Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine researchers have discovered that the infiltration of white blood cells into an expectant mother's blood vessels may explain high blood pressure in pregnancy.
The findings could lead to novel avenues of treatment for pregnant women with preeclampsia based on regulation of white blood cells called neutrophilis, their products or their cellular effects.
Preeclampsia is one of the most significant health problems in pregnancy and a leading cause worldwide of both premature delivery and of sickness and death of the mother and baby. Research has shown that the blood vessels of women with preeclampsia are dysfunctional, but the cause of preeclampsia is not known, and the only treatment is delivery of the baby.
In a study published online in the October issue of Hypertension, a journal of the American Heart Association, the VCU team reported that an infiltration of white blood cells may be responsible for the high blood pressure observed in preeclampsia. These white blood cells release reactive oxygen species that the team showed enhance the reactivity of the mother's blood vessels to hypertensive hormones by activating the RhoA kinase pathway in the blood vessels. Read the study here.
According to corresponding author Scott W. Walsh, Ph.D., professor in the VCU Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the RhoA kinase pathway is an intracellular mechanism in the smooth muscle cells of blood vessels that makes the blood vessels more reactive to hormones that increase blood pressure.
"In other words, the blood vessels contract more easily to the hormones so blood pressure increases even though the hormone levels do not increase," said Walsh.
"These findings may explain the enhanced blood pressure response of women who develop preeclampsia, which was first described almost 40 years ago," he said.
Walsh said some potential treatments on the horizon for clinical studies are monoclonal antibodies that could prevent the infiltration of the white blood cells, and selective RhoA kinase inhibitors that could prevent the enhanced reactivity of the mother's blood vessels.
Provided by
Virginia Commonwealth University
-
New findings may help explain some major clinical symptoms of preeclampsia
Jan 04, 2011 |
not rated yet |
0
-
New finding may help explain development of preeclampsia
Feb 08, 2008 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Battle between the placenta and uterus could help explain preeclampsia
Oct 11, 2011 |
not rated yet |
0
-
In preeclampsia, researchers identify proteins that cause blood vessel damage
Mar 19, 2007 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Women with preeclampsia have fewer blood vessel precursor cells, research finds
Apr 06, 2010 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Motion perception revisited: High Phi effect challenges established motion perception assumptions
Apr 23, 2013 |
3 / 5 (2) |
2
-
Anything you can do I can do better: Neuromolecular foundations of the superiority illusion (Update)
Apr 02, 2013 |
4.5 / 5 (11) |
5
-
The visual system as economist: Neural resource allocation in visual adaptation
Mar 30, 2013 |
5 / 5 (2) |
9
-
Separate lives: Neuronal and organismal lifespans decoupled
Mar 27, 2013 |
4.9 / 5 (8) |
0
-
Sizing things up: The evolutionary neurobiology of scale invariance
Feb 28, 2013 |
4.8 / 5 (10) |
14
-
Assumptions of Griffith's fracture theory
3 hours ago
-
Current leading voltage or vice versa concept
5 hours ago
-
Angular Frequency of AC voltage
8 hours ago
-
Modeling Rigid Body - Unsure about Euler angles and angular velocity
8 hours ago
-
Function for a bullet's path
10 hours ago
-
Elementary questions relating to Newton's laws of motion
11 hours ago
- More from Physics Forums - Classical Physics
More news stories
72 percent of pregnant women experience constipation and other bowel problems
Nearly three out of four pregnant women experience constipation, diarrhea or other bowel disorders during their pregnancies, a Loyola University Medical Center study has found.
Obstetrics & gynaecology
14 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Women's reproductive ability may be related to immune system status
New research indicates that women's reproductive function may be tied to their immune status. Previous studies have found this association in human males, but not females.
Obstetrics & gynaecology
May 17, 2013 |
not rated yet |
0
|
Breakthrough for IVF?
Elsevier today announced the publication of a recent study in Reproductive BioMedicine Online on 5-day old human blastocysts showing that those with an abnormal chromosomal composition can be identified by the rate at whic ...
Obstetrics & gynaecology
May 16, 2013 |
not rated yet |
0
Non-communicable diseases account for half of adult female deaths in rural Bangladesh
While global attention has for decades been focused on reducing maternal mortality, population-based data on other causes of death among women of reproductive age has been virtually non-existent. A study conducted by researchers ...
Obstetrics & gynaecology
May 14, 2013 |
not rated yet |
0
Turkish womb transplant woman's pregnancy terminated
Doctors have terminated the pregnancy of a 23-year-old Turkish woman who was the first ever to receive a uterus transplant from a dead donor, a hospital in southern Turkey said on Tuesday.
Obstetrics & gynaecology
May 14, 2013 |
not rated yet |
0
Study puts Huntington's disease trials on TRACK
(Medical Xpress)—A three-year multinational study has tracked and detailed the progression of Huntington's disease (HD), predicting clinical decline in people carrying the HD gene more than 10 years before ...
No new H7N9 cases in China for a week
No new human cases of the H7N9 virus have been recorded in China for a week, national health authorities said, for the first time since the outbreak began in March.
Nobel laureate plays down flu pandemic scaremongering
A Nobel prize-winning scientist Tuesday played down "shock-horror scenarios" that a new virus strain will emerge with the potential to kill millions of people.
Genetic predictors of postpartum depression uncovered
Johns Hopkins researchers say they have discovered specific chemical alterations in two genes that, when present during pregnancy, reliably predict whether a woman will develop postpartum depression.
New immune system discovered
(Medical Xpress)—A research team, led by Jeremy Barr, a biology post-doctoral fellow, unveils a new immune system that protects humans and animals from infection.
Scientists identify molecular trigger for Alzheimer's disease
Researchers have pinpointed a catalytic trigger for the onset of Alzheimer's disease – when the fundamental structure of a protein molecule changes to cause a chain reaction that leads to the death of neurons ...