Study 1: Effect of Minocycline Treatment on Drug-Resistant Hypertensive Patients
Status:
Recruiting
Trial end date:
2021-09-30
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Hypertension (HTN) is the single most prevalent risk factor for cardiovascular disease,
diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome. Recent American Heart Association (AHA) statistics
indicate that one-third of all adults in the United States of America suffer from HTN.
Despite advances in life style modification and multi-drug therapies, 20-30% of all
hypertensive patients remain resistant.
These individuals exhibit autonomic dysregulation due to elevated sympathetic activity and
norepinephrine spillover, and low parasympathetic activity. It is generally accepted that
this uncontrolled, resistant HTN is primarily "neurogenic" in origin, involving over activity
of the sympathetic nervous system that initiates and sustains HTN. A surgical approach such
as the recently developed "Simplicity Catheter" assisted renal denervation remains one of the
few options available to these patients. Thus, a mechanism-based breakthrough is imperative
to develop novel strategies to prevent and perhaps eventually cure neurogenic hypertension
(NH). This study is designed to evaluate a low and high dose of minocycline to test the
hypothesis that minocycline treatment would produce antihypertensive effects in
drug-resistant neurogenic hypertensive individuals. Minocycline has been selected because of
its demonstrated effects on inhibiting microglial activation and its ability to penetrate the
blood brain barrier. There is no other compound available that is safer and displays
specificity better than Minocycline in inhibiting microglial activation. Thus, the potential
therapeutic benefits of this inexpensive, well tolerated, already FDA-approved drug that has
minimal side effects would be enormous.