This is scientific American 60 second science.

I'm Christopher in D'Alata.

Got a minute?

Some 70 million American adults have high blood pressure.

Three quarters of them rely on medication to keep the condition in check.

But you've got to remember to actually take the daily dose.

Now researchers have devised a longer lasting alternative,

a vaccine to lower blood pressure, for rats at least.

Scientists jabbed hypertensive rats with three doses of the formulation.

It's a DNA vaccine containing DNA fragments from Angiotensin 2, a hormone that boosts blood pressure,

as well as fragments from hepatitis B to guarantee the immune system's attention.

Cells suck up the vaccine's DNA and start pumping out the proteins the DNA codes for.

When the host offenses get a whiff of the proteins, it reacts.

It really revs up against the hepatitis B fragments.

And while it's at it it starts

taking out some angiotensin 2 as well. The result is a reduction in angiotensin 2's

usual blood pressure raising effects similar to what blood pressure meds like Benicar do.

Less angiotensin 2 means more relaxed blood vessels and a drop in pressure.

That effect lasted six months in the vaccinated rats and lengthen their lifespan by eight weeks.

Necropsies on the vaccinated rats revealed healthier heart tissue than normally found with high blood pressure,

and no damage to their kidneys or

livers. The results are in the journal hypertension. Other blood pressure vaccines

...