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posted by Snow on Tuesday August 28 2018, @12:26AM   Printer-friendly
from the one-is-the-loneliest-number dept.

A single pill with two drugs could transform blood pressure treatment, according to the 2018 European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and European Society of Hypertension (ESH) Guidelines on arterial hypertension published online today in European Heart Journal, and on the ESC website.

The guidelines recommend starting most patients on two blood pressure lowering drugs, not one. The previous recommendation was for step-wise treatment, which meant starting with one drug then adding a second and third if needed. This suffered from "physician inertia," in which doctors were reluctant to change the initial strategy despite its lack of success. At least 80% of patients should have been upgraded to two drugs, yet most remained on one drug.

It is now recognised that a major reason for poor rates of blood pressure control is that patients do not take their pills. Non-adherence increases with the number of pills, so administering the two drugs (or three if needed) in a single tablet "could transform blood pressure control rates," state the guidelines.

Professor Bryan Williams, ESC Chairperson of the Guidelines Task Force, University College London, UK, said: "The vast majority of patients with high blood pressure should start treatment with two drugs as a single pill. These pills are already available and should massively improve the success of treatment, with corresponding reductions in strokes, heart disease, and early deaths."

More than one billion people have hypertension (high blood pressure) worldwide. Around 30-45% of adults are affected, rising to more than 60% of people over 60 years of age. High blood pressure is the leading global cause of premature death, accounting for almost ten million deaths in 2015, of which 4.9 million were due to ischaemic heart disease and 3.5 million were due to stroke. High blood pressure is also a major risk factor for heart failure, atrial fibrillation, chronic kidney disease, peripheral artery disease, and cognitive decline.

[...] Professor Giuseppe Mancia, ESH Chairperson of the Guidelines Task Force, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy, said: "We have effective treatments and, theoretically, 90-95% of patients should have their blood pressure under control, but in reality only 15-20% achieve target levels. The 2018 Guidelines aim to improve these poor rates of blood pressure control by introducing a treatment strategy that is simple and easier to follow."

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 2) by donkeyhotay on Tuesday August 28 2018, @03:54PM (1 child)

    by donkeyhotay (2540) on Tuesday August 28 2018, @03:54PM (#727380)

    I agree. I have hypertension and it was getting pretty bad. I cut down on salt intake and started walking regularly. This dropped my blood pressure significantly.

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  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday August 28 2018, @05:49PM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday August 28 2018, @05:49PM (#727439) Journal

    Of course that only is evidence that the combination of both helped. It might be that you would have the same effect if you had started walking regularly but didn't cut down salt intake.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.