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Dr. LeWinter discusses the best methods to lower blood pressure.
Dr. LeWinter:
Here again, oftentimes the initial steps are non-medication and non-drug interventions, weight loss, reducing dietary salt, exercise. All of these things work well, and for people with mild hypertension, especially if it is combined with insulin resistance and/or type 2 diabetes, that can again often really work wonders. For individuals, who, whose blood pressure cannot be controlled in that way, then again, we have a long list of medications.
The ones that have been found to be most effective in this group of patients are medications that interfere with something called the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, and the common names for these types of medications are, they are common, but they are kind of complicated, or angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, known familiarly as ACE inhibitors, and angiotensin receptor blocking drugs, sometimes termed ARBs, and those types of medication seems to be particularly effective in reducing long-term complications as well as treating blood pressure. And I should also say that we generally have more stringent blood pressure controls in people with diabetes and insulin resistance, or targets, I should say, for blood pressure control than we have for people who do not have that problem.
About Dr. LeWinter, M.D.:
Dr. Martin M. LeWinter, M.D., was Director of the Cardiology Unit at the University of Vermont College of Medicine for more than 15 years and is currently the Director of the Heart Failure Program. He is an Associate Editor for the journal Coronary Artery Disease and serves on the Editorial Board of several cardiology journals. He is currently Professor of Medicine at the University of Vermont.