High blood pressure (hypertension) is a principal risk factor for heart disease and affects 1 billion people. At least half of them are estimated to be salt-sensitive; their blood pressure rises with sodium intake. New research released today shows important aspects of how sodium and potassium are regulated in the kidney.

The work, posted online by Nature, also offers insight on how one form of familial high blood pressure disease is inherited. Nephrology researchers in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio are co-authors.

Disease includes high potassium levels, low pH

The study explores the mechanisms of a rare, inherited kidney disease called pseudohypoaldosteronism type II (PHAII). This disease is marked by hypertension, higher-than-normal levels of potassium, and low pH, acidic body fluids. [Read more...]

The tropical disease kills more people annually than cancer, but researchers think they can win the fight.

Dividing her days between treating malaria in Kenya’s coastal regions and administering the latest malaria vaccine prototype, doctor Patricia Njuguna has high hopes for preventing a disease that annually claims more lives than cancer.

The vaccine which Njuguna is testing, known as RTS,S, has been heralded as one of the Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2011 by Time and Science magazines, Doctors Without Borders and the Lancet. It has been developed over the last 25 years as a joint public-private collaboration by GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (an international non-profit organisation) with grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. [Read more...]

There’s bad news for exhausted new parents craving more shut-eye — you can’t just assume that your baby’s sleep problems are normal and will soon pass.

A US study published in the journal Pediatrics found that babies with sleep issues are several times more likely to still have difficulties when they are toddlers compared to babies who sleep well.

Researchers from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Ohio found that one in 10 children under age three has a sleep problem like nightmares, wakings, trouble falling asleep or an inability to sleep in the child’s own bed — results within the range of other studies. [Read more...]