Description: Drugs commonly used to control high blood pressure may also shrink lung tumors, new animal studies show.

As prescribed, the medicines -- known as angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors -- keep blood pressure in check by boosting levels of the "angiotensin (1-7)" hormone, thereby prompting dilation of blood vessel walls.

Blood pressure patients taking ACE inhibitors also have lower rates of lung cancer, noted a team from Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Investigating further, they found that angiotensin (1-7) cuts back on levels of cycloxygenase-2 (cox-2), an enzyme that promotes cell growth and is often elevated in lung cancer patients.

In the team's latest experiment, boosting angiotensin (1-7) levels in mice shrank lung cancer tumors by 30 percent.

"We are cautiously optimistic, but you know how these things go," said study co-author Patricia E. Gallagher, a researcher at Wake Forest's hyper