Medical News Summary: New blood pressure drugs overwhelmingly more effective than older drugs

About: New blood pressure drugs overwhelmingly more effective than older drugs
Date: 8 December 2004
Source: Reuters
Author: Ben Hirschler
Medical News Summary (summary of medical news story as reported by Reuters): A trial of 19,000 subjects comparing new blood pressure drugs with old ones was stopped because the new drugs were so much better that it didn’t warrant a comparison. The new drugs Norvasc and Coversyl resulted in a massive reduction in the number of cardiovascular events compared to the older, but still commonly prescribed combination of beta-blockers and diuretics. The fact that previous studies contradicted these results was due to inaccurate analysis and presentation of the results claim researchers. Another study was stopped when it was obvious that high blood pressure patients benefited from taking Lipitor irrespective of whether they had high cholesterol. Norvasc and Lipitor have since been combined into one pill called Caduet which simultaneously tackles blood pressure and high cholesterol.
URL: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=7031273
Related Disease Topics: High blood pressure, Hypertension, High cholesterol

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Related Medical News Channels: This medical news summary article refers to the following medical channel categories:

• Medication
• medication and high blood pressure
• medication and hypertension
• Research
• research and high blood pressure
• research and hypertension
• research and high cholesterol
• medication and high cholesterol

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