Inflammation and Therapy for Hypertension

It is currently accepted that hypertension, atherosclerosis, and diabetes are disorders with subtle or overt activation of inflammatory mediators. Therefore, it has become increasingly important to ascertain whether current antihypertensive drug families have proinflammatory or anti-inflammatory actions that modify the outcomes of their hemodynamic effects on blood pressure. We review the current state of knowledge about the effects of the major classes of available antihypertensive agents on inflammation and speculate on the possible contribution of these effects to observations in clinical trials. We suggest that a strategy of drug development specifically addressing inflammation in hypertension may provide increased benefit in terms of target organ damage, and we describe some examples of these promising developments.