16 December 2008
For high-risk patients with hypertension, a calcium channel blocker is significantly more lifesaving than a diuretic when either is combined with an ACE inhibitor.
Drawn from a multicenter study involving more than 11,000 patients from the United States and Scandinavia, these conclusions were first reported last spring at the American College of Cardiology meeting. You can read them now in detail in the New England Journal of Medicine.
It’s time to re-examine the 2003 conclusion of the JNC7 calling for diuretics as initial antihypertensive treatment in all cases, says a commentary on the report that appears in the same issue.
The end—reducing blood pressure to goal levels—is more important than the means, it concludes.
Diabetes often develops within a year of initiating thiazide diuretics. This is due to changes in potassium balance, according to a new report in the journal Hypertension.
(Read down the results page for more new reports on diuretic-induced insulin resistance.)
Broader searches
Finding the alternate search term “blood pressure” in the list of broader terms at the left, we found a different set of results. Scroll down the page to find:
* that the new antihypertensive aliskiren remodels heart tissue at levels so low they don’t even alter blood pressure (the report appears in Hypertension), and
* a reflection by the founder of the Framingham Heart Study on the continuing urgent need for primary care physicians to be alert to hypertension and other cardiovascular risk factors (published this month in JAMA).
Practice Guidelines
Quickly find the guidelines for hypertension treatment in this category.
