Blood Pressure Medication to Alleviate Risk of Heart Attacks and Strokes, Study Suggests

Oct, 2020 - By SMI

According to a new study, researchers have reported that drugs for blood pressure have the potential prevent heart attacks and strokes. This medication can work on individuals with standard blood pressure.

Professor Kazem Rahimi, University of Oxford, UK stated, “Greater drops in blood pressure with medication lead to greater reductions in the risk of heart attacks and strokes. This holds true regardless of the starting blood pressure level, in people who previously had a heart attack or stroke, and in people who have never had heart disease. The fact that the relative effects are similar for everyone does not mean that everyone should be treated.”

On the basis of several previous researches there are several contradicting information about whether medications for blood pressure is just as beneficial in people with a past history of heart attack or stroke versus without any heart conditions. This study was piloted to clarify these questions. In this study, researchers linked data on 348,854 individuals who participated in a randomized clinical trials (48 trials) and conducted a meta-analysis.

Moreover, the participants were further segregated into two groups where one group including participants with past history of cardiovascular disease and other group included individuals without any history of heart diseases. Furthermore, each group was divided into seven sub-groups based on systolic blood pressure such as less than 120, 120-129, 130-139, 140-149, 150-159, 160-169, 170 and above mmHg).

Later, after four years of follow-up researchers observed that each 5 mmHg lessening in systolic blood pressure dropped the risk of major cardiovascular conditions by around 10%. In addition, researchers also reported that risks for ischemic heart disease stroke, heart failure, and death from related diseases were reduced by 7%, 13%, 14% and 5%, respectively. Moreover, the researchers suggested that neither the presence of cardiovascular disease nor the level of blood pressure at altered the treatment efficiency.