Itching, chloroquine, and malaria: a review of recent molecular and neuroscience advances and their contribution to mechanistic understanding and therapeutics of chronic non-histaminergic pruritus.

Chloroquine (CQ) is an antimalarial drug that elicits severe pruritus in black Africans with malaria fever. This acute itching (2-7 days duration) exhibits age dependency and a racial and genetic predilection. CQ itch is non-histaminergic, which makes it both a good model and a tool to probe the mechanisms of chronic itch.

Influence of West African Ethnicity and Gender on Beta-Cell Function and Insulin Sensitivity in Essential Hypertensives Treated with Hydrochlorothiazide and Hydrochlorothiazide-lisinopril Combination.

Objective: To assess the effects of hydrochlorothiazide (HCT) given alone and in combination with an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI) on beta-cell function in a negroid population to further explore possible ethnic differences in the effect of antihypertensive drugs on homeostasis model assessment - insulin resistance (HOMA-IR).

Materials And Methods: A total of 80 newly diagnosed Nigerian essential hypertensive patients were assigned to receive either HCT 25 mg daily or both HCT and lisinopril (Lis; 25/10 mg daily) in an open-label study for 12 weeks. The treatment groups were well matched in clinical and demographic baseline features.

Valvular regurgitations may increase risk of arrhythmias in Nigerians with hypertensive heart failure.

Background: Hypertensive heart disease (HHD) is the commonest cause of sudden cardiac death among Nigerians. A high frequency and early onset of valvular regurgitations (VHD) in hypertensives, and greater concentric hypertrophy are also common in that population.

Aims And Methods: To further investigate the relationship between VHD and cardiac arrhythmias and their correlates seen in the hypertensive spectrum and to test the hypothesis that VHD predisposes to cardiac arrhythmias in hypertensive heart failure (HHF).

Valvular regurgitation impact on left ventricular 2-dimensional and Doppler echocardiographic indices in patients with essential hypertension.

Background: Blacks have both a higher hypertension prevalence and accelerated cardiac end organ damage. Because blacks also have a higher prevalence of valvular heart disease, which occurs at a younger age than for whites, we further examined the contribution of valvular regurgitation to the severity of hypertensive heart disease in Nigerians.

Methods: We evaluated and compared echocardiographic indexes in 75 essential hypertensive Nigerians with (n=48) and without (n=27) valvular regurgitations.

Left Ventricular Diastolic Function in Nigerian Patients with Essential Hypertension: A Retrospective Study to Compare Angiotensin Converting Enzyme Inhibitors, Calcium Channel Blockade or Their Combination.

BACKGROUND: Hypertension in blacks imposes a greater left ventricular hypertrophy, and accelerated heart failure onset. We evaluated and compared the echocardiographically determined systolic and left ventricular diastolic functional indices in Nigerian hypertensive patients, associated with the chronic use of ACE inhibitors, Calcium channel blockers (CCB) or their combinations. METHODS: Ejection fraction -EF, intraventricular relaxation time (IVRT), E/A peak velocity ratio, E wave deceleration time] as well as the left ventricular mass index (LVMI) was undertaken among 41 Nigerian patients with essential hypertension only, on treatment for 4-6 months prior.

The effect of flutamide on systemic and renal hemodynamics in Zucker diabetic rats: paradoxic renal vasodilator response to endothelin-1 and TXA2 receptor activation in female sex.

Background: There is increasing evidence that endogenous sex hormones regulate vascular reactivity, and testosterone may contribute to the worse prognosis for renal disease in men. Male Zucker diabetic rats exhibit improved renal hemodynamic responses after castration. It is, however, unclear whether endogenous testosterone affects renal and systemic microcirculatory responses in the female sex, especially in type 2 diabetes.

Adjunctive sympathoplegic therapy to ACE inhibition in Blacks with congestive heart failure: a comparison of alpha-1 with beta-1 blockade on exercise tolerance and cardiac sympathovagal reflex activity.

Objectives: Congestive heart failure (CHF) is characterized by an initial compensatory, but subsequently deleterious, activation of both the renin-angiotensin (RAS) and the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). Incomplete suppression of the SNS may contribute to the residual mortality during optimal ACE inhibitor therapy in CHF. Carvedilol, a mixed alpha and beta-blocker with antioxidant properties, and other pure beta-adrenoceptor blockers reduce morbidity and mortality in Caucasians with CHF.