Breakthrough 20-minute operation to 'cure' high blood pressure with heat

Half a million people in the UK with dangerously high blood pressure, which causes tens of thousands of deaths a year, could be cured by a new treatment.

- Denis Campbell

Doctors have developed a technique to burn away nodules that lead to salt building up in the body, which increases the risk of a stroke or heart attack.

The breakthrough could mean that people with primary aldosteronism —which causes one in 20 cases of high blood pressure—no longer need surgery or to spend their lives taking the drug spironolactone to lower their risk of a stroke or heart attack.

Someone with primary aldosteronism develops nodules on one or both adrenal glands. They sit beside the kidneys and make three key hormones: adrenaline, cortisol and aldosterone. Nodules produce excess aldosterone, which regulates how much salt the body retains instead of using the kidneys to flush it away. Retained salt then causes high blood pressure or hypertension.