Pressure on Beta Blockers

A Drug Fails Tests- If you're taking a beta blocker, this piece of news is for you. In a study published in The Lancet, arguably the world's leading medical journal, Swedish researchers combined data from 13 clinical trials involving nearly 106,000 people and found that beta blockers, which have been prescribed for 30 years to treat high blood pressure, are not only ineffective, but may be harmful to the people who take them.

Increased Risk of Stroke

This meta-analysis, which was spearheaded by Professor Lars Hjalmar Lindholm and colleagues at the Umea University Hospital in Sweden found that risk of stroke on average, was16 per cent higher in patients taking beta blockers. Atenolol in particular, which was under fire last year when a study in The Lancet suggested it was less effective than other drugs in its class, posed a whopping 26 per cent increased risk of stroke as compared to other drugs.

The study came to the conclusion that “In comparison with other hypertensive drugs, the effect of beta blockers is clearly suboptimal”. Experts say that a better choice for treating High Blood Pressure would be ACE inhibitors, which have a better safety profile.

However, in many cases, hypertension can be reversed simply by cleaning up the diet and incorporating exercise.

A study published in Circulation showed that men who ate a low-fibre diet, and exercised daily for 45-60 minutes, had marked decreases in both systolic and diastolic blood pressures after just three weeks.

Apart from limiting salt/sodium, one dietary component that is particularly important in controlling hypertension is potassium. Beefing up your potassium intake alone can have tremendous effects on blood pressure. All you have to do is eat more vegetables and fruit, which are excellent sources of this important mineral.