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Low blood pressure associated with better kidney disease outcomes

Category: Kidney Diseases

Patients who are being treated for renal disease and have high blood pressure may want to consider seeking further kidney testing to determine the condition of the organ. A new study has found that patients who have lower blood pressure respond better to kidney treatments.

In fact, researchers from Johns Hopkins University found that aggressively treating hypertensive patients and lowering their blood pressure beyond what is currently considered healthy can significantly reduce the number of individuals who enter end-stage renal disease, the point at which patients must go on dialysis or receive a kidney transplant to survive.

For the study, researchers placed participants with advanced kidney disease into two groups. One was assigned to receive conservative blood pressure treatments while the other was given more intensive therapy. They found that those who received stronger treatments for blood pressure were 25 percent less likely to develop end stage renal disease.

"This is not a panacea. We have a lot more to figure out. But our evidence suggests that we have a way to at least delay or possibly even prevent end-stage kidney disease in some patients," says Lawrence J. Appel, who led the study.