VCU EXPERT ALERT: Nationally recognized hypertension physician can speak regarding FDA hearing on food manufacturers and sodium content

By Anne Buckley

Dominic Sica, M.D., chair of clinical pharmacology and hypertension at Virginia Commonwealth University, is available for comment on current Food and Drug Administration hearings on whether food manufacturers should be required to lower the salt content of their products.

The American Medical Association is calling on the FDA to require that processed and restaurant foods contain lower amounts of sodium. The AMA maintains that 150,000 lives could be saved each year by cutting in half the sodium in those foods.

Sica's clinical specialization includes all forms of hypertension, including nutritional influences on blood pressure, resistant hypertension, renovascular hypertension, endocrine causes of hypertension and medication intolerance in hypertensive patients. He has particular expertise in drug therapies used in the treatment of hypertension and medication-related causes of hypertension, including over-the-counter therapies.

Sica is often quoted in the media on blood-pressure related issues. In 2006, he was recognized as a Master Clinician by the International Society of Hypertension in blacks. Recently, he co-wrote and edited a fourth edition hypertension primer called, The Essentials of High Blood Pressure: Basic Science, Population Science, and Clinical Management. The book is considered the gold standard in the discipline.