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A dietary supplement significantly reduced high blood sugar caused by a diuretic used to lower blood pressure while also correcting electrolyte imbalances. Millions of Americans take thiazide diuretics, a class of medications used to treat high blood pressure. Although these drugs are very effective, Dr. Vongpatanasin said, they come with significant side effects, including reduced levels of the electrolyte potassium in the blood; higher cholesterol, triglycerides, and other circulating lipids; and elevated glucose (blood sugar), a precursor to Type 2 diabetes. The increase in glucose prompted by these drugs has long been attributed to the decrease in potassium levels. Although...

Among patients with knee pain, those who take a widely used class of blood pressure-lowering medications called beta-blockers appear to have a lower risk of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) for the treatment of advanced osteoarthritis (OA), suggests a study. "Our results indicate that the use of β-blockers, especially nonselective blockers, was associated with a lower likelihood of TKA," according to the case-control study by Iskandar Tamimi, MD, Ph.D. and colleagues. Beta-blockers may slow the progression of OA by reducing inflammatory mediators involved in cartilage degeneration—which may provide clues to the development of new treatment approaches for OA. Researchers identified 300...

Patients in hospital for non-heart related conditions may be unnecessarily receiving blood pressure medication that has no benefit and could instead be harmful in the short term, a new review has found. Led by pharmacologist Professor Arduino Mangoni, the article highlights that while identifying and treating high blood pressure in the community is of vital importance, it's likely that in-hospital elevations in blood pressure are relatively common and might not reflect poorly controlled blood pressure before admission. "The measurement of blood pressure in hospital patients significantly differs from the best practice recommended for primary care and outpatients," says Professor Mangoni,...

Covid-19 patients with a history of cardiovascular disease are at an increased risk of developing severe illness and could benefit most from the Covid-19 treatment Paxlovid – but there’s a catch. Paxlovid can have dangerous interactions with some of the most common medications for cardiovascular disease, including certain statins and heart failure therapies, a new paper warns. The review paper, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, lists dozens of cardiovascular medications and whether they are safe to give along with Paxlovid or whether they could have interactions. Some medications such as aspirin are safe to...

Benefits of the blood pressure medication verapamil include delayed disease progression, lowered insulin requirements, and preservation of some beta cell function. Use of the drug verapamil to treat Type 1 diabetes continues to show benefits lasting at least two years, researchers report in the journal Nature Communications. Patients taking the oral blood pressure medication not only required less daily insulin two years after first diagnosis of the disease, but also showed evidence of surprising immunomodulatory benefits. Continuing medication was necessary. In the two-year study, subjects who stopped daily doses of verapamil at one year saw their disease at two years...

A University of Wellington Ph.D. graduate has found a potential new source of help for colon cancer patients—medications used to treat hypertension, or high blood pressure. Dr. Matthew Munro has spent the last four years investigating whether existing medications could be used to target colon cancer stem cells. "Cancer stem cells can cause cancer development, spread, and recurrence," Dr. Munro says. “I have been studying existing medications to see if they could help mitigate cancer stem cells." Dr. Munro's research focused on medications currently used to treat high blood pressure: beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, and angiotensin receptor blockers. Other research groups...

Beta-blockers are a group of drugs that slow down our heart rate. They work by blocking the action of stress hormones—adrenaline, noradrenaline—stopping them from binding to receptors on heart cells. Because they reduce the rate at which the heart contracts, beta-blockers are a common prescription for treating numerous heart conditions, such as angina, high blood pressure and heart failure. A new study led by Dr. Javier Barallobre-Barreiro has discovered another way that beta-blockers may benefit patients with heart failure. Specifically, they help to reduce the levels of a type of proteoglycans (a hybrid molecule made of protein and carbohydrates) called...

In an analysis of almost 3 million patients taking a single high blood pressure medication for the first time, angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) were as good as angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors at preventing cardiovascular events linked to hypertension, including heart attack, stroke and heart failure. 51 possible side effects and safety concerns were examined: The patients taking ARBs were found to be significantly less likely to develop tissue swelling, cough, pancreas inflammation and bleeding in the digestive tract.While the class of blood pressure-lowering medicines called angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors may be prescribed more commonly, angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) work just...

Older adults who use certain blood pressure drugs may retain more of their memory skills as they age, a new study suggests. Researchers found the benefit among older people taking medications that are allowed past the "blood-brain barrier," which is a border of specialized cells that prevents toxic substances from crossing into the brain. Those drugs include certain ACE inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) — two major classes of blood pressure medication. Among nearly 12,900 study patients, those taking the brain-penetrating medications showed less memory loss over three years, versus people on blood pressure drugs that cannot cross...

People who take all of their blood-pressure medication in one go at bedtime are better able to control their condition and have “a significantly lower risk of death or illness” caused by heart or blood vessel problems compared to those who take their anti-hypertensive medication in the morning, according to research published this month in the peer-reviewed European Heart Journal. The trial instructed 19,084 patients to take their pills on waking or at bedtime, and followed them for more than six years — during which time the patients’ ambulatory blood pressure was checked over 48 hours at least once a...

August 31, 2017 at 3:45 pm I am a migraine sufferer. Approximately 18 mos ago I was put on beta blocker Metoprolol (25 mg twice a day) as a preventative to reduce headache frequency and severity. I had no problems with the medication, other than slight lethargy and a few pounds gained. About 6 weeks ago, however, my pharmacy advised they had switched to a different manufacturer, and things went quickly downhill. My bp, which is usually steady and in the good range of 120/67 started going all over the place from lows to highs, with accompanying rapid heart beats...

Study estimates impact of controversial changes that raised treatment threshold

Washington (AFP) - One in four American adults over 60 being treated for high blood pressure could go off their medication under recent guidelines issued in the United States, a study said Saturday. The changes, which stirred controversy in the medical community, could mean nearly six million may no longer need drugs to control their blood pressure, Duke University researchers said in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The findings are the first to analyze the impact of 2014 guidelines that raised blood pressure targets to 150/90, instead of the previous goal of 140/90, in adults age 60 and...