Inside Lower Blood Pressure Medications:
The Real Dangers

Most people taking medications for lower blood pressure are only too well aware of their side effects...

Those with rising blood pressure but who are not on the drugs are justifiably wary of them. In health forums you can hear the desperation of people struggling to live with both high blood pressure and its treatment. Sometimes it’s hard to say which is worse. To complicate matters further, many cases of hypertension require multiple medications, compounding the potential side effects.

There are several different classes of blood pressure medication and each has its own set of side effects. The following are just a few of the more common types of medication and the problems they can cause:

• Beta-blockers, one of the oldest and most common hypertension drugs, frequently produce fatigue, shortness of breath, dizziness, cold hands and feet, slow heartbeat and loss of libido and/or impotence.

• Diuretics can alter blood chemistry and cause a number of side effects including dizziness, nausea, digestive problems, muscle pain, skin rash and impotence. Long-term use of diuretics can lead to gout, a very painful condition. Diuretics are often used in combination with other blood pressure drugs.

• ACE inhibitors can cause skin rash, loss of taste, a chronic dry, hacking cough, and, rarely, kidney damage.

• Side effects of calcium channel blockers may include heart palpitations, swollen ankles, constipation, dizziness or headache.

It's important to note that some of these effects are rare and not everyone suffers severely. Few, however, escape them altogether. Side effects run the range from mildly annoying to completely debilitating.

What could be worse?

While side effects justifiably capture a lot of attention due to their immediacy, they may not pose the greatest risk of high blood pressure medications. This may belong to the potential and often hidden dangers in their long-term use. High blood pressure is considered a chronic condition, which often results in a long-term or even lifetime prescription. While side effects usually appear quickly, more severe consequences may take years to develop.

Beta-blockers are a good case in point. For decades they served as the front-line drug in the fight against hypertension. Literally millions upon millions of people have been prescribed them. But in 2006 beta-blockers were withdrawn for this use in the U.K. after new studies showed that they actually increase the risk of heart attack and stroke (compared to other blood pressure drugs).

Worse still, beta-blockers have been shown to increase the risk of diabetes by up to 50% and are blamed for 8000 needless cases of diabetes a year in the U.K. alone. Experts now know that beta-blockers have killed many thousands of people. Many doctors are aware of these problems and are switching to newer drugs but for many others in the United States and around the world it’s still business as usual.

"New and improved"?

What about these newer drugs? Doctors and drug companies claim that newer drugs are much safer and have fewer side effects. Of course, that’s what they said about beta-blockers when they first appeared; they were “revolutionary”. But new does not always mean improved or better.

Ironically, new drugs are actually the riskiest. Drugs are tested – in most cases – as far as practically possible. But the only true test comes through long-term use by large numbers of real patients. Medications can take 10 years, 20 years, even a lifetime, to reveal their consequences – just as happened with beta-blockers. That this will happen again with some of today's new drugs is almost certain.

Shane Ellison, known as "The People's Chemist" has a Master's degree in organic chemistry and first-hand experience in drug research and design. In his article "Are Your Blood Pressure Meds Killing You?" he reports that calcium channel blockers, one of the newer beta-blocker alternatives, put users at greater risk of heart failure by preventing calcium from entering the heart.

What’s more cancer is also a possibility. In 1966, The National Institutes of Health issued a warning that, "Postmenopausal women who take calcium channel blockers have twice the risk of developing breast cancer than other women."

Statins are another good example. The top-selling class of drug in the U.S., statins were developed to reduce cholesterol levels but are now prescribed increasingly to lower blood pressure as well. Guidelines for the use of statins now apply to 36 million Americans, not counting millions more who will wind up taking them for hypertension.

Such widespread use is in spite of the fact that many users experience severe reactions to statins including painful muscle cramps, depression and liver damage. On top of that, many experts, even some doctors and drug industry insiders, question the effectiveness of statins as well as the validity of their testing.

Do the ends justify the means?

Of course doctors are not ignorant of these facts, nor do they prescribe dangerous drugs just to make their users' lives miserable. They are well aware of the risks and side effects (though often refusing to recognize their full extent). But hypertension is a dangerous condition, which is more certain to cause misery and shorten lives, sometimes suddenly, when left uncontrolled. They reckon, often correctly, that the risks and side effects of drugs are better than the alternative.

To be sure, these medications have improved and saved the lives of countless hypertension sufferers with life-threatening conditions. But what about the millions with moderate or borderline hypertension? What about the millions more who could be better helped through support for a healthier lifestyle? And what about the aging population who naturally experience a slight elevation in blood pressure?

Do the ends still justify the means? In all of these cases, more often than not, patients are immediately prescribed medication with barely a second thought. It’s no surprise that blood pressure drugs occupy several positions among the top 10 best-selling medications.

Dr. John Lee, a family practitioner, is one of a growing number of medical professionals to speak out. In an article for the Virginia Hopkins Health Watch, "What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Blood Pressure", he writes: