More lives could be saved if doctors considered giving blood pressure drugs to all patients at high-risk of heart disease – even if their blood pressures are normal, a study suggests.<\/p>\n
The report calls for a move away from current guidelines which recommend pills only be prescribed if blood pressure is above a certain threshold.<\/p>\n
But experts acknowledge lifestyle factors also have an important role to play in bringing blood pressures down.<\/p>\n
The study appears in the Lancet.<\/p>\n
High blood pressure has long been linked to a higher risk of heart disease and stroke.<\/p>\n
Current guidelines – issued by England’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence – suggest patients should only take medication when their blood pressure levels reach 140 mmHg.<\/p>\n
Until this point even those at highest risk, for example people who have had previous heart attacks and strokes, are offered monitoring but not pills.<\/p>\n
Now a global team of experts are calling for doctors to focus on an individual’s risks rather than rigid and “arbitrary” blood pressure thresholds.<\/p>\n
Large trial<\/strong><\/p>\n Experts analysed the results of more than 100 large-scale trials involving some 600,000 people between 1966 and 2015.<\/p>\n They found those patients at highest risk – including smokers with high cholesterol levels and people over 65s with diabetes – would benefit most from treatment, lowering their chance of heart attacks and strokes.<\/p>\n In addition the report suggests once on treatment, blood pressure levels could be reduced even further than the targets currently used.<\/p>\n The study also adds to growing evidence that patients may benefit from lowering their blood pressure whatever their baseline levels – either through lifestyle changes or drugs.<\/p>\n But it shows the lower the person’s blood pressure to start with, the lower the benefit they gain from reducing it.<\/p>\n The authors do not go as far as to suggest everyone should be given pills and caution side-effects of medication must be weighed up.<\/p>\n Prof Liam Smeeth, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, agreed the findings were important for those at highest risk.<\/p>\n But he warned: “One important caveat is that not everyone will be able to tolerate having their blood pressure reduced to low levels, and there is a need to balance possible drug side effects and likely benefits.”<\/p>\n Heart specialist Dr Tim Chico, of the University of Sheffield, said medication need not be the only way to tackle the issue.<\/p>\n He added: “We can all reduce our blood pressure.<\/p>\n “We can do this safely, cheaply and as effectively as tablets by eating healthily, taking more physical activity, reducing alcohol intake, and maintaining a healthy weight.”<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" More lives could be saved if doctors considered giving blood pressure drugs to all patients at high-risk of heart disease – even if their blood pressures are normal, a study suggests. The report calls for a move away from current guidelines which recommend pills only be prescribed if blood pressure is above a certain threshold. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":21026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-176826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-chinese"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=176826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=176826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=176826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=176826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}