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According to research published in the journal Current Atherosclerosis Reports , medication for high blood pressure could help alleviate Covid-19 by reducing the adversity of the virus.
The authors of the study examined 28,000 patients who were taking antihypertensives, a type of drug that is used to treat hypertension (high blood pressure).
They found that the consumption of the drug — Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme inhibitors (ACEi) or Angiotensin Receptor Blockers (ARB) — helped people mitigate the risk of death due to coronavirus.
Lead author of the study Vassilios Vassiliou from the University of East Anglia in the UK said in a statement: “At the start of the pandemic, there were concerns that specific medications for high blood pressure could be linked with worse outcomes for Covid-19 patients.”
He added: “We wanted to find out what the impact of these medications is for people with Covid-19.”
The research team examined data from 19 studies to establish a link between Covid-19 and ACEi and ARB medications.
They compared Covid-19 patients who were on this drug with patients who were not taking the ACEi and ARB.
Vassiliou and the team noted that a third of Covid-19 patients with high blood pressure and a quarter of patients overall were taking ACEi/ARBs.
Risk of infection
This is due to the fact that there is a considerable risk of infection in patients with co-morbidities including cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and diabetes.
“But the really important thing that we showed was that there is no evidence that these medications might increase the severity of Covid-19 or risk of death,” the study authors wrote.
“On the contrary, we found that there was a significantly lower risk of death and critical outcomes, so they might, in fact, have a protective role — particularly in patients with hypertension,” the authors added.
Researchers further stated: “Covid-19 patients with high blood pressure who were taking ACEi/ARB medications were 0.67 times less likely to have a critical or fatal outcome than those not taking these medications. Our research provides substantial evidence to recommend continued use of these medications if the patients were taking them already.”
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