Wendy Wolfson
RedwoodAge.com

Everyone over a certain age should take blood pressure drugs, no matter what their current blood pressure readings, according to a team of British researchers whose conclusion is drawing flak from skeptical colleagues. 

Because high blood pressure raises the risk of heart disease and stroke, the researchers say that, epidemiologically speaking, it's better to lower the blood pressure of everybody based on their age, rather than to screen people for hypertension and treat those actually at risk. 

After age 55, even if your blood pressure is normal, you will still benefit by lowering it further, according to the study's authors, Dr. Malcolm Law at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Barts; Dr. Nicholas Wald at the London School of Medicine, Queen Mary University of London; and Joan K. Morris, the deputy director of the Centre for Statistics at Queen Mary.

Critics, however, said that the researchers arrived at improper conclusions based on how they analyzed the data. 

In the study, the researchers compared what happened to people between ages of 60 to 69 who had blood pressure above 150/90 before they took different types of medications. Certain blood pressure drugs were shown in studies to lower blood pressure. But lowered blood pressure does not necessarily translate to fewer heart attacks. 

Conflicting Interest
And the study raises other interesting issues. First, Drs. Law and Wald have financial interest in a polypill - a pill that could prevent both heart disease and strokes in people over 55 and people who suffered from heart disease. Some of their critics also have ties to drug companies. 

But the more important issues for aging boomers with high blood pressure are that the best method to lower blood pressure, and how best to cut the risk of heart disease and stroke, are under debate. 

The concept of a preventive polypill - a single pill containing aspirin, a statin, three blood pressure-lowering agents in half dose, and folic acid - for people with heart disease and those over 55 years old has some merit. Doctors generally give medications to control blood pressure in those who have it.

However, exercise and lifestyle changes such as losing weight and reducing salt and processed foods in the diet can also help reduce blood pressure. Many doctors say that exercise and lifestyle changes should be pushed rather than drugs. 

The bottom line among experts is that it is important to keep blood pressure controlled as high blood pressure, over time, causes cumulative damage and is considered a risk factor for heart attack, stroke and kidney failure. 

The Silent Killer
According to the American Heart Association about one in three American adults has high blood pressure. Because there are no symptoms, nearly one-third of those people don't know they have it. Some have hypertension for years without knowing. 

The only way to know is to get your blood pressure checked. The American Heart Association has a high blood pressure checklist on its site. 

The doctors behind the study published their meta-analysis of 147 studies in the British Medical Journal. They looked at 108 different randomized trials comparing people who took blood pressure drugs to control groups of people who didn't take drugs. They also added 46 studies comparing hypertension drugs, as well as seven studies that fell in both categories.

They ended up with a total of 464,000 people divided into subgroups of healthy people, people who had heart attacks and people who had strokes. 

In their analysis, the researchers concluded that except for calcium channel blockers which were a bit more effective at preventing stroke, and beta blockers given right after a heart attack, the major five classes of drugs all worked the same.  

However, even people with blood pressure considered low at 110/70, had fewer heart attacks and strokes when taking an antihypertensive drug.