advertisement
Science News
from research organizations

Not all hypertension drugs are created equal, reports big-data study

Date:
October 25, 2019
Source:
Yale University
Summary:
对于那些有极高的血液总统sure, or hypertension, there are many initial medication options -- so many that it can be hard to know which one to use. Now, a new article provides more information about the relative safety and effectiveness of different hypertension drugs in order to inform this critical treatment decision. The study reveals that angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors may not be the best choice for initial treatment.
Share:
advertisement

FULL STORY

对于那些有极高的血液总统sure, or hypertension, there are many initial medication options -- so many that it can be hard to know which one to use. Now, a Yale-coauthored paper inLancetprovides more information about the relative safety and effectiveness of different hypertension drugs in order to inform this critical treatment decision. The study reveals that angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors may not be the best choice for initial treatment.

Unprecedented in scale, theLancetstudy pulled together the data of 4.9 million patients from nine institutional databases across four countries. The researchers used that data to compare the safety and effectiveness of the five classes of first-line hypertension medications, including the popular ACE inhibitors. They were looking at how well each drug prevented the three main health consequences of hypertension -- heart attack, heart failure, and stroke -- and to what extent each drug caused 46 unwanted side-effects.

"This is a remarkable, massive, multinational study that has provided insights that can inform patient choices about hypertension treatment," says Dr. Harlan Krumholz, Yale cardiologist and author on theLancetstudy. "What is distinctive is not only the size, but the advanced methods that optimize the trustworthiness of the results."

The big data revealed patterns that would otherwise have taken 22,000 typical observational studies to spot, say the researchers. One key finding was that thiazide or thiazide-like diuretics are better at preventing heart attack, heart failure, and stroke than ACE inhibitors, while also being safer than ACE inhibitors. Taken individually, the differences in safety and effectiveness of the treatments might seem small, say the scientists, but at scale, they become significant. The researchers report that if the 2.4 million people in the study currently using ACE inhibitors had instead been using thiazide or thiazide-like diuretics, more than 3,100 major cardiovascular events could potentially have been avoided.

"Given that these drugs are inexpensive and have a long track-record, the findings should clearly turn us away from the prevalent practice of starting with ACE inhibitors. These findings support people opting for a thiazide diuretic over an ACE inhibitor for the initial treatment of hypertension," Krumholz concludes.

advertisement

Story Source:

Materialsprovided byYale University.Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Marc A Suchard, Martijn J Schuemie, Harlan M Krumholz, Seng Chan You, RuiJun Chen, Nicole Pratt, Christian G Reich, Jon Duke, David Madigan, George Hripcsak, Patrick B Ryan.Comprehensive comparative effectiveness and safety of first-line antihypertensive drug classes: a systematic, multinational, large-scale analysis.The Lancet, 2019; DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(19)32317-7

Cite This Page:

Yale University. "Not all hypertension drugs are created equal, reports big-data study." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 25 October 2019. /releases/2019/10/191025113004.htm>.
Yale University. (2019, October 25). Not all hypertension drugs are created equal, reports big-data study.ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 6, 2023 from www.koonmotors.com/releases/2019/10/191025113004.htm
Yale University. "Not all hypertension drugs are created equal, reports big-data study." ScienceDaily. www.koonmotors.com/releases/2019/10/191025113004.htm (accessed September 6, 2023).

Explore More
from ScienceDaily

RELATED STORIES