For the majority of people who suffer from high blood pressure the only long-term solution is daily pills and regular monitoring from your physician with adjustments to your dosage or changes to your pills as necessary. So how much better would life be if you could simply be vaccinated against high blood pressure and do away with your daily pills?

Close to 1 in 3 Americans are presently suffering from high blood pressure but, as a result of the complicated mixture of tablets often necessary for treatment, only about one third of these people in fact have got their blood pressure problem under control. But, this could be set to change shortly.

In a trial carried out earlier this year a group of 72 patients (7 women and 65 men with an average age of 51 years 6 months) who were suffering from either mild or moderate hypertension were given a low dose (100 micrograms) vaccine, a high dose (300 micrograms) vaccine or a placebo. This injection was repeated for weeks later and at the end of three months.

Two weeks after the last injection it was noted that the people injected with the high dose vaccine showed a drop in excess of 5 mm Hg in their higher systolic blood pressure and almost 3 mm Hg in their lower diastolic blood pressure.

Perhaps more notable, it was also found that the normal, and often dangerous, spike in blood pressure that occurs in the morning between 5 am and 8 am was also reduced markedly by 25 mm Hg systolic and 13 mm Hg diastolic.

The patients taking part in the trial all tolerated the vaccine without difficulty and no safety issues arose during the course of the trial.

So just how does the vaccine work?

At the moment high blood pressure is controlled using various drugs that are designed to act in different ways. Two of the classes of drugs in common use are angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors (such as Lotensin, Vasotec, Aceon, Altace, Capoten, Univasc, Prinivil and Zestril) and angiotensin-2 (AT-2) receptor blockers (such as Atacand, Avapro, Cozaar, Micardis and Teveten). All of these drugs work by blocking the action of a molecule that causes the blood vessels to tighten and as a result to increase the pressure within the blood vessels.

The trial vaccine, which is called CYT006-ANgQb, works in exactly the same manner as these two presently used drugs and so may clearly provide an alternative for those people whose blood pressure is now controlled with ACE inhibitors or AT-2 receptor blockers.

But what about those people whose high blood pressure is currently being controlled using the alternatives of beta blockers (such as Sectral, Inderal, Cartol, Betapace, Lopressor, Blocadren, Tenormin, Kerlone and Zebeta) or calcium channel blockers (such as Norvasc, Plendil, Isoptin, Adalat, Cardizem, Tiazac, Calan, Sular, Procardia, Lotrel and Verelan)?

Of course, it is early days yet and further studies will be necessary before we see a vaccine in everyday use for the control of high blood pressure. If the scientists are right however it is likely that this vaccine will be effective for a lot of sufferers, regardless of the treatment currently being given.

Time will tell of course, but this is most certainly an extremely encouraging development.