'I'm very happy to be able to tell patients that they should continue their blood pressure medications,' says a doctor who led one of the studies that involved about 12,600 people. COVID19PH coronavirus
WASHINGTON DC, USA – Commonly used blood pressure medicines do not heighten susceptibility to COVID-19 infection, or increase the risk of becoming seriously ill with the disease, three major studies said Friday, positive news for the millions of people who take them.
There had been concern arising from animal studies that these medicines might increase the body's levels of a protein called ACE2, which the coronavirus latches on to when it invades human cells, thus increasing people's vulnerability to the disease. "We saw no difference in the likelihood of a positive test with ACE inhibitors and with angiotensin receptor blockers," Harmony Reynolds of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, who led one of the studies that involved about 12,600 people, told AFP.This type of investigation is always considered weaker than"experimental" where an intervention is introduced along with a control, which leaves less to chance.
"I'm very happy to be able to tell patients that they should continue their blood pressure medications," she said. Early on in the pandemic, when it became clear that people with cardiovascular conditions were more likely to get severe COVID-19, scientists wondered: Was it heart disease that was the risk factor, or the medicine used to control it?"It tells you beyond a shadow of a doubt that COVID-19 somehow interacts with the cardiovascular system in a pretty negative way," said Mehra.
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