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Which blood pressure medication for the elderly? An Australian study suggests the age factor is unimportant in selecting a particular drug. Drug companies love to argue that their medication has significant advantages over its competitors. Now sometimes that's true. For example, some cholesterol-lowering medications are more potent than others and give more bang for the buck. But sometimes the differences are superficial and don't count where it matters. And where it matters when you have high blood pressure is reducing the risk of things like heart attacks, strokes and heart failure. And some people have argued that the choice of medications for high blood pressure should be different if you're older. An Australian-led analysis of over 30 clinical trials involving nearly 200,000 people of various ages, divided into the under 65s and the over 65s, has found lots of good news. Firstly, blood pressure reduction reduces the risk from high blood pressure by roughly the same proportion regardless of age. But the benefit is greater the older you are because the background risk is higher with age. And when it comes to choosing your medication, there isn't a good argument for using different medications in the elderly unless the drugs disagree with them.
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