Maryland Medical School To Look at Better Treatment
Options for Black Diabetes and Hypertension Patients
BALTIMORE
A five-year study will look at whether teaching doctors about the latest diabetes and hypertension treatment guidelines and providing counseling for their Black patients will help the patients better manage their conditions.
Researchers hope to gain better control of the diseases by promoting early diagnosis and comprehensive treatment. The study is focusing on Blacks because they are at higher risk for developing the two conditions.
The American Diabetes Association says 11.4 percent of Blacks over age 20 have diabetes, compared with 6.3 percent of the general population. Four out of 10 Black Americans, meanwhile, have high blood pressure, compared with about three out of 10 Whites.
In addition to a higher incidence of the two conditions, treatment is often not as successful for Black patients.
For example, only 40 percent of Blacks treated for hypertension are able to meet goals for reduced blood pressure levels, compared to 54 percent of Whites, said the study’s principal investigator, Dr. Elijah Saunders, a cardiologist at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
“That disturbs us,” Saunders says. “We have improved the detection of high blood pressure. Most people are being treated, but the control rates have not done as well.”
The study by the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the Bon Secours Baltimore Health System is being paid for with a $3 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
