No matter what I read about anxiety, it always seems to come down to stress. Prolonged stress can cause a lot of physical damage over time including producing hypertension, weight gain or loss, or circulatory problems. Stress also contributes to anxiety by causing the adrenal glands to stop functioning properly. That means you're not only under a lot of stress, but you are not physically able to handle it. When the adrenaline glands don't work properly, your moods can begin to shift radically.

This study shows that the prevalence of hypertension in subjects carrying a loss-of-function mutation in MC4R is less than that in overweight or obese control subjects. Metabolic measurements and results of a clinical trial testing an MC4R agonist suggest that melanocortinergic signaling influences blood pressure through an insulin-independent mechanism.

At the beginning of each year I write down an enormous list of New Year’s resolutions that is so beastly that I get depressed at the end of the year when I only cross out the two or three things that I actually accomplished. This year, I think I am going to take Nataly Kogan’s advice and start making my “resolutions” more positive, manageable and realistic. Nataly used to be a resolution list maker like me, but is now reformed and has stopped: “Trying to fix something that I am pretty sure is

This is good to know because we all have relatives who say our hypertension comes from our rush-rush lifestyle, that if we’d just relax and get close to the Earth we’d feel better.

A new clinical trial suggests that long-term use of candesartan, a drug currently used to treat hypertension, may significantly reduce the symptoms of genetic heart disease. The related report by Penicka et al, "The effects of candesartan on left ventricular hypertrophy and function in non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: a pilot, randomized study," appears in the January issue of The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics.