Prescribed Medication for Hypertension = Longer Life

There are at least 970 Million people who have hypertension, according to World Heart Federation. Researchers at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School have made a study and shown that the use of antihypertensive drug therapy contributes to longer life expectancy of the patient. 


"Nearly 22 years after the initiation of the SHEP (Systolic Hypertension ing the Elderly Program) trial, we can confirm the legacy effect of treating hypertension, particularly in the elderly. We report that the average patient would live one day longer for each month of treatment. This may correspond to more than a year for people who start treatment in their fifties," said John B. Kostis, MD, the John G. Detwiler Chair of Cardiology, chair of the department of medicine, and founding director of The Cardiovascular Institute of New Jersey, who led the study. "Physicians may wish to use these data to encourage their patients to be compliant with prescribed treatment, as control of hypertension increases life expectancy; reduces the risk of stroke, heart failure and heart attack; and improves their overall quality of life and allows patients to work for a longer period of time."
-According to the study that was published on Journal of the American Medical Association


SHEP lasted from 1985 to 1990,  they made an assesment on how risk of stroke be reduced thru antihypertensive drug treatment. 4,700 participants were gathered with an average age of 72, all of them had isolated systolic hypertension. Every participant was randomized to either the treatment group, which received chlorthalidone-based therapy, or to the placebo group. 
The study showed that chlorthalidone-based therapy for hypertension resulted in the prevention of about one out of two admissions for heart failure, one out of three fatal or non-fatal strokes and one out of four coronary heart disease events, but there were no significant differences in mortality. At the end of the trial, all participants in both groups were advised to receive treatment for hypertension.




In the last research, the team collected data of mortality and cause of death of all the participants in December 2006.  and the researchers found out that the length in time that patients survived without experiencing a cardiovascular-related death was  longer than the group that received chlorthalidone treatment approximately one day for every month of treatment.


Because of the average age of the trial group and the significance of competing causes of death, such as cancer, in that group, the researchers also analyzed in life expectancy for all-cause mortality, which resulted in a gain of one-half day for each month of antihypertensive treatment in the treatment group over the placebo group.


In addition to its clinical benefits , treatment of hypertension resulting in longer survival may yield important benefits, such as allowing a person to work for a longer period of time, thereby increasing their income earning potential. Treatment of hypertension also may provide a cost savings due to a reduced need for invasive cardiovascular and emergency procedures.