Our Programs
Successfully addressing issues with the magnitude of primary aldosteronism (i.e., absorbing a 95% increase in diagnosis and treatment) requires the simultaneous implementation of multiple solutions on multiple fronts.
From public health to health payors and medical infrastructure, the Foundation has identified over ten critical factors contributing to unmet medical needs:
Since the disease is mistakenly considered rare, and thus underdiagnosed, practicing specialists have little experience with primary aldosteronism, and primary care physicians do not consider its existence among their hypertensive patients. More importantly, inadequate education of current medical students is perpetuating this vicious cycle indefinitely. Research is inevitably underfunded, thereby preventing the development of much needed solutions to remediate the limitations of current diagnostic and treatment modalities. Testing and treatment capabilities are equally insufficient to meet medical needs, and the urgency to scale their use is neither acknowledged nor addressed by public health and health funding agencies.
Since primary aldosteronism accounts for a considerable proportion of essential hypertension (i.e., blood pressure for which no underlying cause could otherwise be determined), since aldosterone is involved in such a wide array of cardio-metabolic diseases, and because the imbalance between high prevalence and underdiagnosis of primary aldosteronism represents a major public health issue, the Foundation advocates leveraging scientific power through the creation of a Manhattan Project similar to that created in April 2020 for COVID-19.
In the short term, the Foundation is prioritizing its programs to help address the most pressing issues with interventions expected to yield the greatest return on investment. These programs involve:
