The American Heart Association’s Conference of the Council for High Blood Pressure Research held in Atlanta at the end of last week came with some interesting studies on high blood pressure and ways to prevent or improve the condition.

One of the studies belonged to Italian researchers led by Dr. Rosa Maria Bruno from the University of Pisa. The study concluded that vitamin C delivered intravenously might lower high blood pressure by acting on an overactive central nervous system.

The researchers focused on 12 patients who were given three grams of vitamin C over a five-minute period. After 20 minutes, most of the patients saw their blood pressure plunge at least seven percent. More over, the drop was higher in the diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number on a reading) of 9 percent. However, Dr. Bruno said it is too early to conclude that vitamin C can reduce either blood pressure or sympathetic activity among healthy patients – just among those with high blood pressure.

“(And) our results cannot be directly translated into clinical practice, because to obtain this result, we used one high dose of vitamin C administered intravenously. We don’t know if chronic oral administration of vitamin C can achieve the same effect,” Dr. Bruno said.

Another study presented Friday at the conference revealed what should have been no mystery for anyone, either doctor or patient. To be more specific, the study found that patients with resistant hypertension assigned to a low-sodium diet saw their blood pressure drop by 22.6 mmHg and their diastolic blood pressure by 9.2mmHg. The study was conducted by Dr. Eduardo Pimenta with the Department of Hypertension and Nephrology at the Dante Pazzanese Institute of Cardiology in Sao Paulo, Brazil and colleagues and involved 13 patients with resistant high blood pressure. All patients were taking an average of 3.6 blood pressure lowering medications. Their blood pressure was 147.9 over 85.2 millimeters of mercury (mmHg). Normal blood pressure is 140 over 90 mmHg.

“A high-salt diet contributes importantly to treatment-resistant hypertension (high blood pressure). We were expecting blood pressure reduction with low-salt diet but the reduction was larger than we expected,” Dr. Pimenta said.

The study also showed that salt restriction reduces intravascular fluid retention and improves vascular function, two phenomena also known to cause high blood pressure. In fact, patients with high blood pressure are recommended no more than 1,500 milligrams of salt per day.

If the first two studies focused on more practical ways of reducing high blood pressure, the third study appears to say that patients with the condition need to slow things down, take deep breaths and relax more often. The study, led by Jean Tang, an assistant professor at the College of Nursing at Seattle University in Washington, found that listening to relaxation tapes or classical music by Mozart reduce blood pressure by 7-9 mmHg.

“This is a simple program that’s very easy to do, and blood pressure did decrease. It won’t replace medicine. It can only reduce blood pressure to a certain point – it’s like making lifestyle changes,” Dr. Tang said.

High blood pressure appears to be a significant and common problem. Left untreated it may lead to coronary heart disease, heart failure, stroke, kidney failure and other health problems. According to recent estimates, approximately one in four people has hypertension and about two-thirds of people with hypertension aren’t adequately controlled.