{"id":225213,"date":"2025-11-16T12:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T18:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/one-of-the-worlds-oldest-blood-pressure-drugs-may-also-halt-aggressive-brain-tumor-growth"},"modified":"2025-11-16T12:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T18:04:09","slug":"one-of-the-worlds-oldest-blood-pressure-drugs-may-also-halt-aggressive-brain-tumor-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/one-of-the-worlds-oldest-blood-pressure-drugs-may-also-halt-aggressive-brain-tumor-growth","title":{"rendered":"One of the world\u2019s oldest blood pressure drugs may also halt aggressive brain tumor growth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/one-of-the-worlds-oldest-blood-pressure-drugs-may-also-halt-aggressive-brain-tumor-growth.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A Penn-led team has revealed how hydralazine, one of the world\u2019s oldest blood pressure drugs and a mainstay treatment for preeclampsia, works at the molecular level. In doing so, they made a surprising discovery\u2014it can also halt the growth of aggressive brain tumors.<\/p>\n<p>Over the last 70 years, hydralazine has been an indispensable tool in medicine\u2014a front-line defense against life-threatening <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/high+blood+pressure\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">high blood pressure<\/a>, especially during pregnancy. But despite its essential role, a fundamental mystery has persisted: No one knows its \u201cmechanism of action\u201d\u2014essentially how it works at a molecular level, which allows for improved efficacy, safety, and what it can treat.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHydralazine is one of the earliest vasodilators ever developed, and it\u2019s still a first-line treatment for preeclampsia\u2014a hypertensive disorder that accounts for 5%\u201315% of <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/maternal+deaths\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">maternal deaths<\/a> worldwide,\u201d says Kyosuke Shishikura, a physician-scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. \u201cIt came from a \u2018pre-target\u2019 era of <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/drug+discovery\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">drug discovery<\/a>, when researchers relied on what they saw in patients first and only later tried to explain the biology behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Penn-led team has revealed how hydralazine, one of the world\u2019s oldest blood pressure drugs and a mainstay treatment for preeclampsia, works at the molecular level. In doing so, they made a surprising discovery\u2014it can also halt the growth of aggressive brain tumors. Over the last 70 years, hydralazine has been an indispensable tool in [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":732,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/732"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}