Blood pressure pill prevents heart attack
A DRUG normally used to treat high blood pressure can also prevent heart attack, heart failure, stroke and death in people who are at high risk of cardiovascular disease, an international study including 1300 Australians has found.
The six-year trial involving more than 25,600 people in 40 countries showed that telmisartan was as effective as the current treatment, ramipril, even in those whose blood pressure was not high.
But patients receiving it experienced fewer side effects, including coughing and rapid swelling of the body's tissues, and were more likely to continue taking it than the older drug.
The Australian co-ordinator of the trial, Garry Jennings, of the Baker Heart Research Institute, said the findings were important because people who could benefit from a protective pill still felt well, despite being at increased risk of cardiovascular events.
"The last thing these people want is to endure side effects caused by their medication," Professor Jennings said.
More than 700,000 Australians were "healthy but high risk" patients, and preventative treatment could lead to 10,000 fewer deaths from heart attack and stroke in Australia each year, he said.
The trial findings were to be presented at the American College of Cardiology Congress in Chicago yesterday and are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
A 2000 study showed ramipril prevented one in five serious cardiovascular events in high-risk patients, compared with a placebo.
The latest study's participants were over 55 and had normal or well-controlled blood pressure, but a history of heart attack, stroke, blocked arteries in their arms or legs, or diabetes with kidney disease.
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