March 11, 2003 - The International Society on Hypertension in Blacks (ISHIB) and the nation's leading medical experts have developed the first-ever guidelines for treating high blood pressure in African Americans. African Americans are significantly more likely to die of high blood pressure than the general public because current treatment strategies have primarily been unsuccessful. Article from Insite News.

The full-text of recommendations is available on-line:

"Management of High Blood Pressure in African Americans: Consensus Statement of the Hypertension in African Americans Working Group of the International Society on Hypertension in Blacks - full-text from Archives of Internal Medicine(link is no longer available)

"High Blood Pressure in African Americans" - full-text editorial from Archives of Internal Medicine(link is no longer available)

November 20, 2002 - The latest report from the African American Study of Kidney Disease and Hypertension (AASK) shows that stringent efforts to lower blood pressure in people with kidney disease don't prevent the loss of kidney function, but they do appear to save lives. Story from HealthScoutNews/Yahoo. (link is no longer available)

The study appears in this week's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association:

"Effect of Blood Pressure Lowering and Antihypertensive Drug Class on Progression of Hypertensive Kidney Disease" - abstract from JAMA

October 25, 2000 - African-Americans who are taking blood pressure medications are being urged to see their physicians to review their treatment plans.

This advice from the ISHIB (The International Society on Hypertension in Blacks) is a result of a recently halted NIH study that showed that people with kidney disease and protein in their urine were more likely to postpone kidney failure by taking either an ACE inhibitor or a beta blocker rather than taking a calcium channel blocker (CCB).

Here is the news bulletin (link is no longer available) from the International Society on Hypertension in Blacks web site.

October 17, 2000 - The National Institutes of Health (NIH) called an early halt to one arm of a study on the advice of an independent data and safety monitoring board after finding that people with kidney disease and protein in their urine were more likely to postpone kidney failure using either an ACE inhibitor or a beta blocker than a calcium channel blocker (CCB). Here is the press release from the NIH web site.

The story can also be found at these sources:

Angiotensin-converting Enzyme Inhibitors, Beta Blockers May Postpone Kidney Failure from the Doctor's Guide to the Internet. (link is no longer available)

Calcium channel blockers for hypertension suffer new setback from Reuters/Yahoo. (link is no longer available)

[This message has been edited by Gary Peterson (edited 05-28-2003).]