Blood Pressure Pills may Help Reduce Risk of Stroke in People With Above Normal Blood Pressure

A group of American researchers has found that taking a preventive dosage of blood pressure pills can reduce the risk of strokes among those who have an above normal blood pressure but are not considered to be hypertension patients.

Doctors do not prescribe blood pressure drugs to those people whose blood pressure levels are above normal, but are not high enough to be considered as suffering from high blood pressure.

However researchers led by Dr Ilke Sipahi, from the Harrington-McLaughlin Heart and Vascular Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, said that taking a preventive dose will reduce the risk of strokes among such patients.

The researchers used data from 16 studies involving more than 70,664 people and found that a daily pill reduced the risk of strokes by 22 percent. "Our study pertains to people with prehypertensive blood pressure levels and shows that the excess risk of stroke associated with these readings can be altered by taking blood pressure pills", Dr Sipahi said. The study has been published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Source: Medindia