Central sympathetic blockade profile be advantageous the management of patients with metabolic syndrome ?

Abstract EN

Metabolic syndrome, the association of obesity, hyper¬tension and hyperlipidaemia in conjunction with impaired glucose tolerance or frank diabetes, is a rising global pat¬tern and has been subjected to a useful consensus re-defi¬nition in recent months'1Its origins are fixed in changing dietary and activity patterns across the developed world but also increasingly affecting all developing economies.

The obvious sequelae of this spiralingpattern are increases of atherosclerotic vascular disease and subsequent occlu¬sive vascular events, morbidity and premature mortality for affected patients.

Given its emerging importance we should consider carefully the role of the sympathetic ner¬vous system in the overlapping management of the patho¬physiology of obesity and hypertensive vascular disease ; the recognition of the metabolic syndrome and its defini¬tion in practice; and whether new trial results pertinent to managing hypertension in the overweight patient with metabolic syndrome using the central imidazoline antago¬nist drug, moxonidine, might prompt reconsideration of this established strategy for lowering blood pressure.