The Guinea Pig Generation

Most People Who Take Blood Pressure Medication Possibly Shouldn’t

The study was conducted by the widely respected Cochrane Collaboration, which provides independent analyses of medical data. The “independent” part is important: The panelists who conducted the analysis don’t take money from drug companies. Since many doctors and professional societies have been promoting treatment for mild hypertension for decades, the astute reader might wonder why this analysis was conducted only recently. The reasons are complex, but in a nutshell, researchers simply never addressed the question: Does treatment of mild hypertension help or harm patients? Instead, many authorities simply assumed that treatment helped, probably because treatment of more severe hypertension has been shown to be beneficial. In most clinical trials, patients with all degrees of hypertension were simply lumped together.

Good grief.   My husband has been arguing about this with his doctor for a decade.