Doctors take new approach to help patients lower blood pressure

CHARLOTTE — Steven Politis says he’s been dealing with high blood pressure since he was 15 years old. Now, at 65, he has to take 12 pills a day to try to keep it under control.

“I’ve taken every medicine known to man, and that got to the point where I stopped taking my meds because I didn’t see nothing happening,” Politis said.

Last December, that decision caught up to him. Politis suffered a stroke, which he says was a wake-up call.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, high blood pressure contributed to more than 660,000 deaths in 2023. Nearly half of all adults in the U.S., around 119 million, have high blood pressure.

“So we’re historically not doing a good job, I think of getting people’s blood pressure under control. And even if we just drop someone’s blood pressure 10 points, you’d improve their mortality overall by about 20%,” Cardiologist Killian McCarthy told Channel 9’s Damany Lewis.

McCarthy told Channel 9 about a new approach doctors are taking at Atrium Health to help patients lower their blood pressure. It’s a procedure called “renal artery denervation,” and it’s approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Here’s how it works: a catheter through the arteries emits radio frequency waves, burning nerves near the kidney.

“To put it simply -- burns some of those extra nerves that are causing high blood pressure,” McCarthy said.

Doctors say not everyone with high blood pressure qualifies for it, but the patients who do are seeing success.

“I would say the vast majority of patients, when we studied have gone at least 30 days before we start seeing good results,” McCarthy said.

Politis says he’s using the procedure to take back control of his blood pressure and his life.

“Absolutely, it’s my time. Now, you know, life is short, so, you know, I wanted to get back into who I was,” Politis said.

Doctors say patients who can’t tolerate blood pressure medication or patients whose blood pressure remains uncontrolled with medication may qualify for this procedure.

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