Researchers stated that blood pressure can be reduced sharply in people who can not control hypertension with medicines by a simple surgical procedure meant for destroying certain nerves in the kidney.

There were 52 people on whom the study was conducted and despite the fact that they were taking five hypertension medications, their blood pressure averaged 178/96.

By 32/12 their blood pressure dropped on average, while no change was shown by a control group of 54 patients who received only drugs.

Dr Douglas Weaver, division head of cardiovascular medicine at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, who was not involved in the study said, "Those blood pressure reductions are pretty remarkable. Those patients had been given everything and had not responded. Did they prove that this should go into the clinic? No, the study is far too small. But they have shown that here is a way we could potentially lower blood pressure."

According to Dr. Suzanne Oparil, a hypertension specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the study held a lot of importance. In the 1980s there was work on this and it was seen that hypertension was prevented in animals but in humans there was no way of translating it. There is an enormous clinical need for this kind of approach.