Ask the World Health Organization which health problem is the world’s biggest and they’ll tell you it’s high blood pressure.
1.13 billion people are affected by it, and if they don’t get treatment then they’re looking at a heart attack or stroke at best.
Unfortunately, a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that those who do go for treatment might be inadvertently making things worse.
Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center found that one of the top blood pressure drugs can increase patient’s risk of getting cancer by a staggering 250%.
The researchers looked at post-menopausal women who’d been taking calcium channel blockers (CCAs) to combat their hypertension. They found they were more likely to get Invasive ductal and lobular carcinomas, which account for 90% of all types of breast cancers.
Unfortunately, doctors continue to prescribe these dangerous drugs to postmenopausal women, and they are not the only problem medications. The breast cancer risk also goes up when patients are given blood pressure medicines such as diuretics, ACE inhibitors, and beta blockers, too.
Add to this the fact that the National Institutes of Health says that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) raises breast cancer risk by 50 percent anyway, and it gets even worse.
It’s clear that there really should be lots more research going on into all of these issues, including the potential effects on men.
You should probably be avoiding these drugs if you possibly can, but if you do then what else can you try to lower your blood pressure?