Washington, Jan 20 (ANI): A new study has shown that beta-blockers in combination with certain anti-hypertensive drugs can significantly reduce blood pressure in hypertension patients.
Beta-blockers are commonly used in the treatment of high BP to help reduce the risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease. They can be used alone or as a second-line therapy in combination with a wide range of anti-hypertensive drugs.
Cochrane researchers conducted 20 trials involving a total of 3,744 patients. They found that adding beta-blockers as the second-line drug, in combination with thiazide diuretics or calcium channel blockers, caused an additional blood pressure reduction.
The reduction was around 30pct greater when the dose was doubled.
"We feel that these findings are generalisable to most patients being treated for hypertension where a beta-blocker is added as a second-line drug to a first-line thiazide," said lead researcher, Jenny Chen, who works in Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
"The finding that beta-blockers produce a different pattern of blood pressure lowering to thiazides when used as second-line drugs certainly deserves further attention as it might explain why beta-blockers appear to be less effective than thiazide diuretics at reducing adverse cardiovascular outcomes, particularly in older individuals," Chen added. (ANI)
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