According to the BBC, epidemiologist Professor Malcolm Law is advocating giving everyone over 55 drugs to lower their blood pressure, even if they are perfectly healthy.
photo credit: Goldmund100
This isn’t some fringe nutter. He’s at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, associated with Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, which according to their website was recently assessed as “one of the top 5 research institutions in the UK”. His conclusion was published in the British Medical Journal (“medical publication of the year“), backed by “other experts” (the BBC’s phrase), and based on a review of 147 studies, involving 464,000 people.
I can’t match those big guns in terms of credibility, but I still think he’s talking nonsense. So do advocacy groups. The article quotes spokespeople for the Stroke Association, the Blood Pressure Association and the Faculty of Public Health, warning that these medications do have side effects (though Professor Law is advocating low doses for exactly this reason), and that there are other, non-drug interventions which also reliably lower blood pressure (healthy eating, reducing salt and alcohol, and regular exercise). They appear to think, as I do, that throwing pills at everything and everybody is not the best approach.
photo credit: tomsaint11
Of course, I could go for the cheap shot and point you to the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine list of funders, which includes Aventis, Astra-Zeneca, Glaxo Smith Kline, and Pfizer, and then claim that Professor Law is in the pockets of Big Pharma. I think it’s probably more complex than that. Professor Law is operating in a particular mindset which is very common among doctors and medical researchers, and which large pharmaceutical companies are very happy to encourage: the way of thinking that says that medication is the first and best solution for any health problem.
I differ from him in that regard. I don’t think giving 100% of the older population a pill that may lower risk 25-30% of the time for 5-10% of them is a good idea.
What do you think?
Technorati Tags: blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, risk, medication, drugs, drug alternatives, medical research, ageing, pharmaceuticals, Big Pharma
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