Commentary: Mixed messages

Editorial Commentary Mixed Messages on Blood Pressure Goals

The management of hypertension has represented one of the most important therapeutic successes of the past 50 to 60 years. The capability now exists to lower blood pressure (BP) effectively and with relatively minimal adverse effects in most hypertensive individuals. The debate regarding therapy has shifted from whether lowering BP is beneficial to such issues as the relative benefits and risks...

Mixed messages

Mixed messages

plants are cloaked in hundreds of tiny projections, known as trichomes. These structures vary in function, shape, size and spacing from species to species, and it’s not known whether similar cellular differentiation programs are responsible for making trichomes in different plants. Trichomes are clearly visible in the scanning electron micrograph of a wild-type Nicotiana tabacum seedling above ...

NPY's mixed messages

According to a study on page 1575, cellular debris might help trigger the autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Vollmer and colleagues show that endogenous complexes of RNA and protein, often released from dying cells, engage activating receptors in dendritic cells (DCs). The activated DCs then launch an inappropriate immune response against these self-complexes, thus triggerin...

BMJ Mixed messages Medical myths