More On Beta Blockers For High Blood Pressure

I ran across this article on the BBC website, titled New Advice on Blood-Pressure Drug, and it is in regards to Beta-Blocker medication. It may be of some help to you if you're considering going to a Beta-Blocker to medicate your hypertension. Here is that article:

A class of drugs called beta-blockers should no longer be used as routine to treat high blood pressure, says the NHS drugs watchdog for England and Wales. Other drugs are better at treating the condition, also known as hypertension, which affects 40% of adults, it says.

The guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence says using beta-blockers can also increase the risk of diabetes. But patients on the drugs are urged to keep taking them until seeing their GP. The guidance, developed in conjunction with the British Hypertension Society, is an update of NICE guidance published in 2004 - but only the section on drugs for managing hypertension has been republished.

The hypertension guidance was not due for an update until 2009 but new research prompted NICE to take a fresh look. In 2004 a large trial was stopped early because the results with newer drugs to lower blood pressure were so good.

About 40% of adults in England and Wales have hypertension and in 2001, the NHS funded 90 million prescriptions for drugs which lower blood pressure.
Two million people in the UK are currently treated with Beta-blockers for hypertension.
The drugs are also used to treat heart failure and angina and should still be used for these problems.

But NICE now says the evidence suggests they perform less well than other drugs in treating high blood pressure, particularly in the elderly, and there is increasing evidence that they carry an "unacceptable risk" of provoking type 2 diabetes.
Instead doctors should use another class of drugs, adding in different ones if a patient's blood pressure remains high, it says.


New Advice On Blood Pressure Drug, courtesy of the BBC