Posted on 11/19/2025 7:57:47 PM PST by ConservativeMind
A team has revealed how hydralazine, one of the world's oldest blood pressure drugs and a treatment for preeclampsia, works. In doing so, they made a surprising discovery—it can also halt the growth of aggressive brain tumors.
In their paper the team uncovered the method of action of hydralazine, and in doing so, revealed an unexpected biological link between hypertensive disorders and brain cancer. The findings highlight how long-established treatments can reveal new therapeutic potential and could help in the design of safer, more effective drugs for both maternal health and brain cancer.
The team found that hydralazine blocks an oxygen-sensing enzyme called 2-aminoethanethiol dioxygenase (ADO)—a molecular switch that tells blood vessels when to tighten.
Hydralazine acts by binding to and blocking ADO, which means it effectively "mutes" that oxygen alarm. Once the enzyme was silenced, the signaling proteins it normally degrades—called regulators of G-protein signaling (RGS)—remained stable.
The buildup of RGS proteins, says Shishikura, tells the blood vessels to stop constricting, effectively overriding the "squeeze" signal. This reduces intracellular calcium levels, which he calls the "master regulator of vascular tension." As calcium levels fall, the smooth muscles in blood vessel walls relax, causing vasodilation and a drop in blood pressure.
Prior to this study, cancer researchers and clinicians had begun to suspect that ADO was important in glioblastoma, where tumors often have to survive in pockets of very low oxygen.
To see if hydralazine was a contender, Shishikura worked closely with structural biochemists and with neuroscientists.
They found that the ADO pathway that regulates vascular contraction also helps tumor cells survive in low-oxygen environments. Unlike chemotherapy, which aims to kill all cells outright, hydralazine disrupted that oxygen-sensing loop, triggering cellular "senescence," or a dormant, non-dividing state in glioblastoma cells, effectively pausing growth without triggering further inflammation or resistance.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
It is commonly used with a diuretic.
Can’t be true. I know from ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine that there are no alternative treatments from drugs. They treat one and only one disease.
FDA to Glioblastoma:
“You’re not a blood vessel, y’all!”
bkmk
Thanks for posting, I have a friend with a very aggressive glioblastoma, and I forwarded it to his wife.
In general, I have to say that you are doing a very selfless and wonderful thing for everyone who reads your medical posts, and those who receive them from us. I am certain that you’ve saved lives and alleviated a lot of suffering, just as much as many doctors. I hope that you earn a LOT of brownie points upstairs for what you have done.
BFLR
Thank you.
My wife had encouraged me, for several years, to put up the items I had reviewed and found useful, but had only been keeping them for me to send to friends and family, as they could help.
Doing this here forces me to edit a bunch of text I never had to before (I had just kept titles and links), but I know it helps a large number of people. Still, reducing the whole write up to 300 words can be challenging, and certainly the reading or skimming of several dozen daily write ups a day takes time I may not have, but it’s important for me to try.
Again, thank you for the support.
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