Do Some Categories Of Medication To Lower Blood Pressure Work Better Than Others

— -- Question: What are the various categories of medication to lower blood pressure, and do some work better than others?

Answer: Well we have a variety of medications known to reduce blood pressure. We've had medicines now for just about five decades, dating back to the early 1950s. The drug classes include groups such as diuretics, beta blockers, ACE inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers, calcium channel blockers, and others.

These drugs are a little bit hit and miss on how well they reduce blood pressure in a particular patient. The calcium channel blocker class however seems to be one that will reduce blood pressure in literally everyone who receives that medication.

Yet that grouping of drugs does have a little bit of a problem with somewhat more side effects than the other drug classes.

So if you look at what we have, we have an ample assortment of medicines to select from and within each class of drugs, we have several individual members, some of which are actually a little bit better than the other within that same drug class. So there's the process of selecting a class and selecting a member within that class for use for a patient.