New recommendations come for early treatment for millions of people with high blood pressure at a time when a new experimental drug has a lower blood pressure in patients who are difficult to treat.
Juanna Samarz, host:
More than half of the Americans between the ages of 40 years or more have high blood pressure. Usually there are no symptoms, but left without treatment, it can be fatal. NPR reports on NPR on new recommendations aimed at prevention and new experimental drug that experts say has some promising results.
Alison Aubi, Banlin: When George Solomon was told about the risk of high blood pressure, he was hesitant to take medications because he felt completely satisfied. Then at the age of 63, he suffered a stroke.
George Suleiman: I was active throughout the day abroad. I visited the gym. Then at 7:30 of that night, I went up to the top floor to watch a movie, and when I sat on the chair, I couldn’t return. I had a sense of back across my back.
Aubbari: He lost his feeling, leg, and quickly in the hospital. After months of recovery, he recovered a lot of his strength, taking medications.
Suleiman: I feel more healthy. I think it is paired with lifestyle and weight reduction, there is still more heart disease, still training strength – yes, it makes a big difference.
Aubbari: New guidance from the American Heart Association focuses on early prevention. Dr. Dan Jones, who chaired the committee that has written the instructions, says it may be useful to start blood pressure medications as soon as the blood pressure is struck by the risky range.
Dan Jones: For all people with blood pressure more than 140 more than 90 millimeters of mercury, we recommend starting medications.
Ibry: The new guidelines also emphasize lifestyle strategies, including low -sodium diet, exercise and reduce stress in the form of meditation, yoga or deep breathing. For people with systolic blood pressure – this is the upper number in 130s – the recommendation is to start these changes, then move to the drug if it does not improve.
Dr. Jordi Cohen, kidney disease specialist and high blood pressure specialist at the University of Pennsylvania. She says millions of adults in the United States can benefit from medications and change lifestyle.
Jordy Cohen: There is a really huge healthy preventive opportunity to treat high blood pressure early if you have been thrown early, you are treating it early, and you can really end up with many years of life as you do not suffer from a blow, as you do not suffer from a heart attack or heart failure because you dealt with this earlier.
Aubbi: Some people do not get enough decrease with current medications, so Jordi Cohen says that there is a lot of attention in a new category of medicines that work by targeting the hormone aldosterone, which helps to regulate fluids and sodium in the body. Much of the hormone is one of the causes of high blood pressure. It indicates new data.
Cohen: The new study released in the New England magazine shows that this new category of medicines reduces very effectively when used in people who are difficult to control.
Aubbari: It is one of the many studies of Baxdrostat drugs, which has not yet been done on the market. Drug makers plan to share data with organizers by the end of the year.
Cohen: In high blood pressure, we have not seen anything new since the nineties that were effective.
Aubbari: So she says new treatment options will be very useful. Dr. Jennifer Brown, a cardiologist at Brigham Hospital and Women, is one of the researchers behind the new study, which was sponsored by Astrazneca, which was taken by about 800 people taking medications or three medications but still suffer from high blood pressure.
Jenifer Brown: What we saw is that after 12 weeks of treatment, there were about 10 blood pressure improvements in patients treated with Baxdrostat on the effect of the placebo.
Obry: A drop of 10 points is about 20 % at the risk of heart attacks and strokes, as well as a low risk of dementia.
Alison Aubber, NPR news.
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