A novel way of using blood pressure-lowering drugs could prevent 25 percent of heart attacks and strokes, up to 180,000 a year, finds study.
Individualizing treatment recommendations using patients' risk of heart disease after considering multiple factors - such as age, gender and whether or not the patient smokes - is a more effective way to treat patients than current methods.
Heart Attack- Lifestyle risks
Heart attack is the death of the heart muscle due to loss of blood supply. Simple guidelines to avoid heart attack are listed.
Advertisement
According to authors, current medical guidelines use a one-size-fits-all treatment approach based on target blood pressure values that leads to some patients being on too many medications and others being on too little.
Researchers found that a person's blood pressure level is often not the most important factor in determining if a blood pressure medication will prevent these diseases - but common practice is to base treatment strictly on blood pressure levels.
![Quiz on Blood Pressure]( "Quiz on Blood Pressure")
Blood pressure is an important vital sign. Answer this Quiz and learn more about blood pressure.
Lead author Jeremy Sussman, M.D., M.Sc., assistant professor of internal medicine in the Division of General Medicine at the U-M Medical School and research scientist at the Center for Clinical Management Research at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, said that drugs that lower blood pressure are among the most effective and commonly used medications in the country, but we believe they can be used dramatically more effectively.
He said that the purpose of these medications is not actually to avoid high blood pressure itself but to stop heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular diseases.
Sussman asserted that they should guide use of medications by a patient's risk of these diseases and how much adding a new medication decreases that risk - not solely on their blood pressure level.
He found that people who have mildly high blood pressure but high cardiovascular risk receive a lot of benefit from treatment, but those with low overall cardiovascular risk do not.
The study has been published in the medical journal, Circulation.
Source: ANI
Quiz on Blood Pressure
Blood pressure is an important vital sign. Answer this Quiz and learn more about blood pressure.
Advertisement
Lead author Jeremy Sussman, M.D., M.Sc., assistant professor of internal medicine in the Division of General Medicine at the U-M Medical School and research scientist at the Center for Clinical Management Research at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, said that drugs that lower blood pressure are among the most effective and commonly used medications in the country, but we believe they can be used dramatically more effectively.
He said that the purpose of these medications is not actually to avoid high blood pressure itself but to stop heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular diseases.
Sussman asserted that they should guide use of medications by a patient's risk of these diseases and how much adding a new medication decreases that risk - not solely on their blood pressure level.
He found that people who have mildly high blood pressure but high cardiovascular risk receive a lot of benefit from treatment, but those with low overall cardiovascular risk do not.
The study has been published in the medical journal, Circulation.
Source: ANI
Aspirin may Increase Risk of Strokes
A new study suggests that daily intake of the drug can lead to other complications such as strokes caused by burst blood vessels.
Advertisement
Advertisement
|
Advertisement
Recommended Reading
Latest Heart Disease News
The start of the week is when most fatal heart attacks occur, according to a study.
The first community-based study, published in the journal Lancet, says that delays in seeking care account for nearly 55% of the reported cardiac and stroke deaths in India.
The study emphasizes the existing proof on the heart disease risks of tobacco smoking and the urgent need to stop smoking among cancer survivors.
New study findings provide novel pathophysiological insights involving blood vessel integrity and tissue-mediated coagulation in a type of heart attack in young women.
Recent study identifies five heart failure subtypes with the potential for individual patient risk prediction.