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A pill taken for just 6 to 12 months kept high blood pressure in check for two years after patients stopped taking it. In a new report in the New England Journal of Medicine, a team led by Professor Morris Brown at Queen Mary University of London followed 14 patients at eight U.S. centers who took a daily pill called baxdrostat for 6 to 12 months and then stopped. Up to two years later, their main marker of excess aldosterone was still 99% lower than before treatment, their blood pressure was about 25 points lower on average, and almost a quarter had normal blood pressure without any other medication. The problem is called primary aldosteronism. Small, harmless lumps on the adrenal glands pump out too much of a hormone called aldosterone, which makes the kidneys hold on to salt and pushes blood pressure up. Until now, the only real cure was surgery to remove an entire adrenal gland. The drug blocks the enzyme that makes aldosterone, and the team thinks that switching it off for months may make the overactive cells wither away, echoing a 2005 mouse study in which deleting that gene made those cells vanish. And since fewer than 1 in 100 people with the condition are ever tested, many don't know their high blood pressure has a fixable cause. That said, this was a small group of 14 people, and even the researchers say it's too early to call anyone cured, though Brown says longer follow-up may justify that claim. Their larger ELIXIR trial will use adrenal scans to check whether the overactive cells really disappear, and if they do, a once-a-day pill could one day spare many patients from surgery. source: Brown, M. J., et al. (2026). Hyperaldosteronism remission after extended aldosterone synthase inhibition. New England Journal of Medicine.