High blood pressure: Often it is due to the adrenal glands

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

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Not every blood pressure can be adjusted well with the classic antihypertensive agents. Conn syndrome could be the cause more often than expected. The adrenal glands produce too much aldosterone, a hormone that helps regulate blood pressure.

"In six percent of those suffering from high blood pressure one can assume a hormone cause and this is treatable or curable," says Professor Martin Reincke, President of the German Society for Endocrinology (DGE). This could apply to up to 1.7 million patients with Conn syndrome in Germany alone.

Researchers from Turin recently discovered this proportion of the syndrome in blood pressure cases when it examined 1,672 patients with high blood pressure more closely. In 5.9 percent of the participants, the hormone excess was the cause of the problem.

Often particularly high values

It also affected a disproportionately large number of test subjects who had particularly high blood pressure values. In the group with the highest blood pressure values (over 180/110 mm Hg) it was around twelve percent, almost three times as many as in patients with the mildest hypertension (below 140/90 mm Hg).

A salutary change in therapy

It also fits that the classic antihypertensive drugs often do not work sufficiently in patients with Conn's syndrome. Although they take up to three medications, they fail to lower their levels sufficiently. They could be helped quickly with a change of therapy.

Tablets or surgery

One possibility in particular is the aldosterone counterpart spironolactone. It blocks the “docking points” for aldosterone and thus blocks its effect. Spironolactone is used when the adrenal glands are enlarged and therefore produce too much hormone. If the cause is a mostly benign tumor that diligently produces hormones, you proceed differently: You operate. The affected adrenal gland is often removed at the same time. The remaining body then takes over the tasks.

For patients, the discovery of Conn's syndrome is often a blessing, as in many cases your blood pressure can be lowered satisfactorily for the first time. If this does not happen, hypertension damages the blood vessels over the years. Then the risk of heart attack and stroke increases, but also of heart and kidney weakness.

Widespread disease high blood pressure

High blood pressure is a widespread disease that, according to the Robert Koch Institute, affects almost every third adult between the ages of 18 and 79. Unlike patients with Conn's syndrome, most of them suffer from what is known as primary hypertension, for which no clear cause can be found. However, we know that in addition to genetic predispositions, an unhealthy lifestyle, i.e. too little exercise, unhealthy diet, obesity and stress, play a decisive role.

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