Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Monitoring Heart Disease: Questions About Statins And New Blood Pressure Guidelines
The New York Times: You’re Over 75, And You’re Healthy. Why Are You Taking A Statin?
Should a 76-year-old who doesn’t have heart disease, but does have certain risk factors for developing it, take a statin to ward off heart attacks or strokes? You’d think we’d have a solid answer to this question. These widely prescribed medications lower cholesterol to reduce cardiovascular disease, the nation’s most common killer, and get much of the credit for the nation’s plummeting rates of heart attacks and strokes. (Span, 1/5)
The Washington Post: New High Blood Pressure Guidelines Can Be Confusing Even For Doctors
When headlines about new blood pressure guidelines pinged across my phone recently, I remembered a man my inpatient team had admitted to the hospital not long ago. He had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the toilet and passed out, hitting his head on the floor. The first people to find him described him twitching, so he initially got a battery of tests to determine whether he was having seizures. All were negative. But when he got out of bed and stood up, his blood pressure dropped from 137/63 to 98/50 — a sign of a condition called orthostatic hypotension. (Marcus, 1/7)
The Washington Post: Some Pretty Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Help With High Blood Pressure
If you’re worried about high blood pressure, there are some things you can do beyond taking appropriate medication. The American Heart Association (AHA) points to somenot-so-difficult lifestyle changes to delay or lower high pressure and reduce the risk of illnesses associated with it, such as heart disease, stroke and kidney disease. (1/7)
