About 1 billion people around the world suffer from hypertension. The molecular mechanisms of this disease, its diagnosis and treatment will be the focus of a lecture series at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology's annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif. The talks will take place from Monday, May 26 through Wednesday, April 28 in room 304C of the Anaheim Convention Center.
According to a 2002 World Health Organization study, disease attributable to hypertension was the No. 1 cause of mortality in the world. Investigating the diagnosis, treatment and variability in patient populations will aid in controlling this disease.
With this in mind, the ASBMB has organized a series of symposia, titled "Hypertension: Treatment, Disparities and Molecular Mechanisms."
The first symposium, "Molecular Mechanisms of Hypertension," will be at 9:55 a.m. Monday, April 26, and will cover the mechanisms that regulate salt reabsorption in the kidney. Disorders that result in too much salt reabsorption produce hypertension.
A symposium titled "Diagnosis and Treatment of Hypertension" at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 27, will cover the paradigms for developing individual treatment regimens for hypertensive patients, clinical studies focusing on the efficacy and importance of combination therapies in the treatment of hypertension and evidence that earlier treatment of "pre-hypertension" is beneficial.
The final symposium, titled "Disparities in Hypertension Treatment and Sequelae," is scheduled for 9:45 a.m. Wednesday, April 28. The speakers will address the differences in the diagnosis and treatment of hypertension based on gender and age as well as the differences in the rate and severity of complications of hypertension between different patient populations.