Monday, researchers revealed that they had found a gene that affects how our kidneys process salt to be linked to a person’s risk of developing high blood pressure, a discovery which opens the door to improved methods of treating the condition.

University of Maryland School of Medicine scientists said that people with a common variant of the gene STK39 were more prone to registering higher blood pressure that others, being also more likely to come to suffer from hypertension.

Researchers were able to determine the role the gene played where proneness to high blood pressure was concerned by analyzing the genes of 542 people in the insular Old Order Amish community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Afterwards, they confirmed their findings by studying the genes of another group of Amish people, along with four other groups of white people in the United States and Europe.

The team of scientists revealed that approximately 20 percent of the people they had studied had one or two copies of the above-mentioned gene variant.

Yen-Pei Christy Chang, the researcher who led the studies, said that their discovery could be used in developing high blood pressure drugs that focused on the activity of STK39, which would probably be more effective given that the gene produces a protein involved in regulating the way the kidneys process salt in our bodies, a major factor in determining blood pressure.

Currently, the meds used to treat the condition include diuretics, beta blockers, ACE inhibitors and calcium channel blockers.

in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.