The electronic implant that could keep your blood pressure safe without drugs
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Researchers have unveiled a tiny implantable patch that can automatically monitor and control the wearer's blood pressure.
The German invention monitors the signals sent through a nerve in the neck to regulate blood pressure.
If it detects a high reading, it can overwrite the message, lowering the pressure without drugs.
The German invention monitors the signals sent through a nerve in the neck to regulate blood pressure. If it detects a high reading, it can overwrite the message, lowering the pressure without drugs.
THE US BLOOD PRESSURE CRISIS
67 million American adults (31%) have high blood pressure—that's 1 in every 3 adults.
Only about half (47%) of people with high blood pressure have their condition under control, and high blood pressure costs the nation $47.5 billion each year.
This total includes the cost of health care services, medications to treat high blood pressure, and missed days of work.
More than 348,000 American deaths in 2009 included high blood pressure as a primary or contributing cause.2 That's 1,000 deaths each day.
High blood pressure is the greatest health risk worldwide behind smoking and alcohol consumption.
67 million American adults (31%) have high blood pressure, almost 1 in every 3 adults.
Doctors usually prescribe drugs against high blood pressure.
In around 35 percent of patients, however, pills do not succeed in reducing blood pressure in the long term.
Chronic high blood pressure leads to damage in other organs – the eyes, kidneys, the heart, and the central nervous system, in particular.
Dr. Dennis Plachta and Prof. Dr. Thomas Stieglitz from the Laboratory of Biomedical Microtechnology at the Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) of the University of Freiburg teamed up with the neurosurgeons Dr. Mortimer Gierthmühlen and Prof. Dr. Josef Zentner from the Medical Center – University of Freiburg to develop the new cuff equipped with electrodes that can lower blood pressure without causing side effects.
It involves implanting a newly developed cuff with 24 electrodes in the so-called vagal nerve on the neck.
The device starts by determining which electrode is closest to the nerve fibers that transmit the blood pressure signal.
Then it uses electrostimulation to overwrite the information in these fibers with such precision that other bundles of fibers with other functions are not affected.
The researchers have named this procedure for individual analysis, selection, and stimulation 'BaroLoop'.
Chronic high blood pressure leads to damage in other organs ¿ the eyes, kidneys, the heart, and the central nervous system, in particular.
The scientists tested the device on rats and succeeded in lowering their mean blood pressure by 30 percent, without causing side effects such as a reduced heart rate or a drastic decrease in respiratory rate.
The findings of the study have been published in the Journal of Neural Engineering.
Now that the scientists have determined that a cuff with electrodes is feasible in principle, they have begun to develop a completely implantable system.
However - as such a device is classed as an active implant that must fulfill the highest level of safety standards according to medical product laws, they do not expect to produce a licensed product for at least ten years.
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