PMID: 8952812Sep 1, 1996Paper

Role of diuretics in the treatment of hypertension: from large controlled trials to international guidelines

Archives des maladies du coeur et des vaisseaux
J Chalmers

Abstract

Diuretics were used in most of the major trials that demonstrated that lowering the blood pressure reduced cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Nevertheless in the second half of the eighties, there were misgivings about the widespread use of thiazide diuretics, driven in part by the relative failure of the large trials to reduce myocardial infarction-to the extent predicted by large scale epidemiological studies. There was much attention on metabolic side effects of thiazide diuretics including dyslipidaemia, glucose intolerance, hypokalaemia, hyperuricaemia, and then microalbuminuria particularly in diabetic subjects. These issues were current when JNC (IV) (1988) and the WHO-ISH guidelines (1989) were being written. Three major clinical trials SHEP, STOP and MRC published in the early nineties established that thiazide diuretics alone, or in combination with beta blockers, did reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in elderly subjects with hypertension. All guidelines published since 1993 include diuretics among the first line drugs. Possibly the most important factor in the restoration of diuretics has been the use of progressively lower doses that minimise the metabolic side effects. Diuretics are effective as mo...Continue Reading

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