If this is not your name, click here.
| | If this is not your name, click here. | | |
| | Contact Us | Order Now | Journals | Bookstore | Register a colleague | | |
| |  Study Suggests Calcium Antagonist Not Safe In Diabetics MONTREAL, QC -- March 5, 1998 -- Researchers report in this week’s issue of The New England Journal of Medicine that patients with diabetes and hypertension have more fatal and nonfatal heart attacks if they take the hypertension drug nisoldipine, a calcium-channel blocker, than if they take enalapril, an angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitor. Previous studies have suggested a higher risk of cardiovascular complications in patients taking calcium-channel blockers. The current study, the Appropriate Blood Pressure Control in Diabetes (ABCD) Trial, originally aimed to compare the effects of moderate blood pressure control with those of intensive blood pressure control on the incidence and progression of diabetes complications and compared the efficacies of nisoldipine with enalapril in preventing the complications of diabetes. The trial also aimed to analysed data on the secondary end point (the incidence of myocardial infarction) in the subgroup of patients who had hypertension. Although the results showed similar control of blood pressure, blood glucose and lipid concentrations and smoking behavior in both treatment groups, the researchers also found that nisoldipine was linked to a higher incidence of fatal and nonfatal heart attacks (myocardial infarctions) than enalapril (25 and 5, respectively).
|
