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Video: Hypertension Doubles Risk Of Death From COVID-19
Hypertension doubles risk of death from COVID-19
Taking drugs to lower blood pressure does not affect mortality from coronavirus infection. Scientists insist that with COVID-19, the treatment of hypertension cannot be interrupted.
Photo: CC0 Public Domain
People who suffer from high blood pressure have twice the risk of death from COVID-19 than people with normal blood pressure. This is evidenced by a large study published in the European Heart Journal.
Previous studies have shown that hypertension increases the risk of severe COVID-19. New scientific work demonstrates how dangerous the combination of high blood pressure and coronavirus infection is.
An international team of scientists led by Fei Li from the cardiology department of Xi'an Hospital in China analyzed medical records of 2,866 patients who were being treated for COVID-19 in Wuhan. Scientists found high blood pressure in less than 30% of the study participants.
“Soon after we started treating COVID-19 in early February in Wuhan, we realized that about half of the patients who die have high blood pressure,” said Ling Tao, study co-author.
According to this study, 4% of patients with high blood pressure and 1.1% of those with normal blood pressure died. The authors took into account various factors that could increase mortality among hypertensive patients. They then concluded that high blood pressure alone doubles the risk of death from COVID-19.
Separately, scientists pointed out that the mortality rate among hypertensive patients who stopped taking their blood pressure medications was 7.9%.
To find out if COVID-19 mortality depended on what blood pressure medications patients were taking, the study authors analyzed an additional 2,300 case histories. Scientists were worried about drugs from the group of ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers. But the analysis showed no connection. Therefore, scientists are convinced that hypertensive patients should not interrupt treatment in the event of COVID-19 disease.
