Low doses of blood pressure medications have been found effective in treating hypertension, say researchers.
Scientists at The University of Western Ontario have revealed that a simplified and more effective method of treating hypertension is using low doses of single pill combinations, rather than multiple pills.
In the "Simplified Treatment Intervention to Control Hypertension" (STITCH) study, the team has found that recently diagnosed patients might better be served starting with a half tablet of a single pill combination drug e.g. an ACE-inhibitor/diuretic or Angiotensin receptor blocker/diuretic combination than the regular starting dose of a single drug.
The proper diagnosis and treatment of high blood pressure can reduce the risk of stroke by up to 40 pct, and that of heart attack by up to 25pct.
"The nature of hypertension management has changed. It's much more aggressive, and complex, leading to hundreds of recommendations on how to manage high blood pressure," said Feldman, the R.W. Gunton Professor of Therapeutics at Western.
"This should be a call to hypertensive patients to go to their family physicians to be prescribed these single pill combinations. It makes both the patients' and doctors' lives easier," he added.
The study appears in the journal Hypertension.