Health
Blood pressure and diuretics
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted July 18, 2005
Diuretics work better than newer and more costly medicines in the treatment of hypertension and prevention of some forms of heart disease in people with type 2 diabetes, according to results from the Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial, or ALLHAT.
The latest ALLHAT results were published in the June 27 Archives of Internal Medicine.
Results from an earlier ALLHAT study published in the Dec. 18, 2002, Journal of the American Medical Association found that diuretics were superior in preventing adverse cardiovascular disease outcomes compared with other first-step antihypertensive medications. The current report indicates that this is true not only in hypertensive patients with normal blood sugar but also in those with diabetes or an impaired fasting glucose.
Almost three out of every four people with type 2 diabetes has hypertension, putting them at substantial risk for cardiovascular disease, said Paul K. Whelton, MD, lead author of the study and senior vice president for health sciences at Tulane University in New Orleans. An important question in patients with type 2 diabetes and hypertension has been whether it makes a difference which medicine is used for initial therapy of high blood pressure, he said.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2005/07/18/hlbf0718.htm.
