Blood-Pressure Medicine Reduces Risk of Developing Enlarged Heart

Blood-pressure medicine reduces the risk of developing an enlarged heart and may be responsible for the decline in the heart disease death rate since the late 1960s. The ongoing Framingham (Mass.) Heart Study of 10,333 volunteers confirmed a dramatic reduction in the number of cases of left ventricular hypertrophy, in which the main pumping chamber of the heart becomes dangerously enlarged to compensate for higher blood pressure.

A team led by Dr. Arend Mosterd of Erasmus University Medical School in the Netherlands reported in today’s New England Journal of Medicine that between 1950 and 1989, the number of men taking blood pressure medicine jumped to 24.6% from 2.3%. Meanwhile, the risk of left ventricular hypertrophy declined to 2.5% from 4.5%. Among women, the decline was even more dramatic, the study found.

--Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II