Combo blood pressure pill cuts deaths in diabetics
Giving people with Type 2 Diabetes a combination pill to lower blood pressure cuts their risk of Heart attack or death, regardless of what their blood pressure was before treatment, scientists said on Sunday.
Those taking the combined angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor and diuretic medicine were 18 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease than patients on placebo, according to a four-year study involving 11,000 patients.
Diabetics are well known to be at increased risk of heart problems and anti-hypertensive drugs are widely used. But this is the first time researchers have shown the benefits of a fixed combination pill.
The overall risk of death from any cause was cut 14 percent, with a mortality rate of 8.5 percent seen among patients on placebo versus 7.3 percent for those on treatment.
The two-in-one combination of the ACE inhibitor perindopril and the diuretic indapamide is marketed as Preterax by privately owned French drugmaker Servier.
Study investigator Stephen MacMahon from the George Institute at the University of Sydney told the annual European Society of Cardiology congress that if these benefits were applied to just half the population with diabetes worldwide, around 1.5 million deaths would be avoided over five years.
CHEAPER ALTERNATIVES?
But Norman Kaplan of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center warned against over-interpreting the data.
Writing in the online edition of the Lancet medical journal, Kaplan said other blood pressure drugs could work just as well and be a lot cheaper, since multiple ACE inhibitors and diuretics are available in generic form.
Kaplan said 30 tablets of branded perindopril cost more than $60 in the United States, where Servier’s medicine is marketed by Solvay, while a similar generic pack of the rival ACE inhibitor lisinopril costs just $4.
MacMahon acknowledged that other medicines might well work but said the clinical data for this was not available.
“Clearly there’s a broader message here that lowering the blood pressure of everybody with diabetes is critical to avoiding complications,” he told reporters.
Some 250 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes and most of them will eventually die from the condition or be disabled by complications linked to it.
The vast majority have Type 2 Diabetes, which is closely linked to Obesity and is on the rise around the world, fuelled by poor diet and sedentary lifestyles.
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