Hypertense?

After 45, one out of every four people in the U.S. suffers from high blood pressure. Doctors, who know neither the cause nor the cure, have tried everything from diet to psychoanalysis. In no other disease, says Dr. William Goldring of New York University, have so many different treatments been tried. Last week he reported in The American Journal of Medicine: "The history of therapy in hypertensive disease is replete with instances of unwarranted enthusiasms and baseless claims."

Rice diet? Dr. Goldring believes that experiments with this diet have proved nothing at all. Low salt diet? "A treatment of doubtful value." Sympathectomy (cutting nerves leading to the body's small blood vessels)? It has not yet been shown to have much effect, but is "a highly desirable clinical experiment." Removal of one kidney? Only for conditions that would make surgeons take it out anyway.

The only treatment Dr. Goldring really believes in is psychotherapy: "Simple, sympathetic reassurance is often sufficient to relieve disturbing symptoms . . ."

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