About 1.3 billion people around the world live with high blood pressure, and treatment options include lifestyle modification and medications, but taking the latter may be difficult for some.
Taking several medications to control blood pressure may be difficult for patients, as most people with high blood pressure need to take multiple medications, and here comes the new treatment, which provides a pill that combines low doses of 3 different medications for high blood pressure.
This combination is called Gmrx2, and is manufactured by George Medicines.
Researchers from the University of South Wales in the United Kingdom examined this combination, and published the results of their study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
The researchers recruited about 300 study participants with uncontrolled high blood pressure, living in Nigeria.
Half of the participants received the drug, a once-daily pill that combines low doses of 3 high blood pressure medications:
- Telmisartan
- Amlodipine
- Indapamide
“It’s a single-pill combination of three drugs, each at low doses — with multiple mechanisms that increase effectiveness and with lower doses that reduce side effects,” said researcher Anthony Rodgers, a professor at the George Institute for Global Health at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
The other half of the study group received the current standard hypertension treatment plan recommended by the Nigerian Ministry of Health, which begins with one medication and is followed by adding a second and third medication as needed.
Systolic blood pressure decreased after 6 months
After 6 months of treatment, Rodgers and his team found that study participants who took the combination Gmrx2 pill had 31 mmHg lower home systolic blood pressure, compared to a 26 mmHg reduction in the group that followed standard care protocols.
Previous research links a 5 mm Hg drop in systolic blood pressure to a reduction in the risk of major cardiovascular events (such as a heart attack) by about 10%.
“Finding significant and sustained reductions in blood pressure is important — every mmHg of higher blood pressure increases your chance of having a cardiovascular event (heart attack or stroke) by about 2 percent,” Rodgers said.
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Scientists also discovered that after just one month, 81% of study participants who received the combination Gmrx2 pill achieved clinic-measured blood pressure control versus 55% after standard hypertension care.
This improvement continued for 6 months with 82% of those receiving Gmrx2 achieving control, compared to 72% who received standard treatment.
Details about the ingredients of the triple cocktail
Telmisartan
Telmisartan is a prescription medication available as the brand name Micardis. Telmisartan is used to lower high blood pressure. Telmisartan may also be used to reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, or death from heart disease.
It is given to adults aged 55 or older who are at high risk of major heart disease and who cannot take angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors.
To treat high blood pressure, telmisartan may be taken with other medications to lower blood pressure.
Telmisartan belongs to a class of medications called angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs). A drug class is a group of drugs that work in a similar way. These medications are often used to treat similar conditions.
Telmisartan works by blocking the effect of angiotensin. This makes the blood vessels relax more. It also allows your kidneys to get rid of excess water and salt. This helps lower blood pressure.
Amlodipine
Amlodipine (also called amlodipine besylate) is an oral tablet prescribed to treat high blood pressure and some heart problems. Amlodipine belongs to the calcium channel blocker class of medications.
Amlodipine only comes as a tablet that you take orally. Amlodipine oral tablet treats high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, and angina.
Indapamide
Indapamide, a “diuretic,” is used to reduce swelling and fluid retention caused by heart disease. It is also used to treat high blood pressure. It makes the kidneys get rid of unnecessary water and salt from the body into the urine.
Indapamide comes in the form of tablets that are taken orally. It is usually taken once a day, in the morning.
Indapamide controls high blood pressure but does not cure it. Continue to take indapamide even if you feel better. Do not stop taking indapamide without talking to your doctor.
Indapamide is also used to treat swelling and fluid retention caused by various medical conditions other than heart disease.
A condition in which the blood pressure in the blood vessels is high enough to cause health damage to the body, such as heart disease and clots. It is considered one of the most important health risks on a global level, and it is called the “silent killer” because the patient may be infected with it for years without knowing it, and it is not discovered until permanent damage has occurred to the body.
Blood pressure depends on the amount of blood pumped by the heart to the body, and the amount of resistance to its flow in the blood vessels. The greater the pumping and the higher the vascular resistance, the higher the blood pressure.
Blood pressure is measured using a special device that may be manual, such as a mercury blood pressure monitor, or automatic, such as electronic blood pressure measuring devices. While the first may be more accurate, the second is easier to use.
The device records two readings, the first, which is the highest, represents the systolic blood pressure, and the second, which is the lowest, represents the diastolic. The reading is written in the form of a fraction, the numerator is systolic and the denominator is diastolic. For example, if the systolic pressure is 120 and the diastolic pressure is 80, then the blood pressure for this person is written as 120/80. The unit of measurement is millimeters of mercury, which means that systolic pressure, for example, is equal to the height of a column of blood mercury Its length is 120 mm.
Symptoms of high blood pressure
The danger of high blood pressure is that it is a disease that develops over the course of years, and many more years may pass before it is detected. This is because it does not usually have clear symptoms, and they only appear when the pressure reaches very high levels that may be fatal. However, in the early stages of the disease, some patients may feel a slight headache or dizziness, and they may also suffer from nosebleeds (epistastes) more frequently.
But waiting for symptoms to appear is wrong, because by the time they appear, the pressure will have exhausted the body and its organs, causing permanent damage to the heart, arteries, eyes, and other organs. Therefore, measuring blood pressure periodically by a doctor is the key to early diagnosis of the disease.
The American Heart Association classifies blood pressure readings according to the following:
- Normal blood pressure: systolic less than 120 and diastolic less than 80.
- Pre-morbid: systolic between 120 and 139 and diastolic between 80 and 89.
- Stage 1 hypertension: systolic 140-159 and diastolic 90-99
- Stage 2 hypertension: systolic 160 or higher, diastolic 100 or higher.
- If the systolic blood pressure is higher than 180 or the diastolic blood pressure is higher than 110, this means that the patient is experiencing a hypertensive attack, and he must then go to the emergency clinic immediately, because this increase threatens the patient’s life. In an emergency, the doctor will quickly lower the patient’s blood pressure, and may keep him in the hospital until it is under control.
Types of high blood pressure
- Primary hypertension: It is also called essential hypertension. This disease has no clear known cause. It represents 95% of cases of high blood pressure, and it develops over years. Although there are no clear causes for this type, there are risk factors associated with it that increase the possibility of contracting it.
- Secondary hypertension: It results from a specific organic cause, which makes it secondary to it. It usually appears suddenly, and its readings are higher than the initial high blood pressure, and it represents 5% of high blood pressure cases. Many health conditions lead to the development of secondary high blood pressure, such as kidney disease, diseases and tumors of the adrenal gland, some types of drugs, and aortic stenosis, where a suffocation occurs in the vicinity of the artery a short distance after it leaves the heart, which requires the heart to pump blood more forcefully in order to cross this suffocation.
Risk factors for high blood pressure
- Age. The older the age, the higher the risk of developing high blood pressure.
- Masculinity: Men are more susceptible to high blood pressure than women, and women usually develop the disease after menopause.
- Genetics, as it is believed that genes play a role in the disease, and therefore it is more common in certain families, and it is also more common in blacks than in whites.
- the weight Overweight and obesity, because increasing body mass requires the heart to pump a larger amount of blood sufficient to deliver oxygen and nutrients to parts of the body.
- Lack of physical activity.
- Use of tobacco products such as smoking and hookah.
- Eating too much sodium is… salt Food, nuts, snacks, canned goods and processed meats.
- Eat a little potassium, which is believed to be able to balance sodium in the cells, so not getting enough potassium may mean the accumulation of large amounts of sodium in the blood.
- Drink wine.
- Stress, as it may raise blood pressure sharply but temporarily.
- Some diseases, such as high blood cholesterol, diabetes, kidney disease, and suffocation sleep.
