a high blood pressure medication
years, people, the difficulties of high blood pressure and diabetes, kidney problems have believed that the more expensive blood pressure drugs gave them an added advantage in terms of protection for the kidneys. So, they tend to spend extra dollar blood pressure medication, although cheaper generic equivalent is available. The less expensive generic drugs, they were by her doctor, has less to help their kidneys healthy.

But a recent study on blood pressure medication and its relation to kidney health has cast doubt on conventional wisdom.

The study, conducted in the United Kingdom, suggests that the more expensive blood pressure medications do not provide more benefit to the kidney is less expensive than the generics. The real key, the study seems to say, is finding a drug, the blood pressure down.

Dr. Raymond MacAllister at the Center for Clinical Pharmacology at University College in London was by HealthDay reporter with the words "," In patients with high blood pressure, at risk of progressive kidney disease - particularly diabetics - it does not matter, blood pressure, the drug use, if you good control of blood pressure. ""

The current guidelines for the treatment of hypertension in patients with kidney disease, especially diabetics, calls for the use of two types of drugs - angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE)-inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blocker (ARB). These are considered first-line drugs to lower blood pressure in those who have diabetic kidney disease. For several years, medical experts have assumed that these drugs have specific effects on the kidneys, through their ability to lower blood pressure.

But MacAllister of my study group and in the 10th December 2005 issue of The Lancet questions assumptions.

The British team looked at the evidence supporting the use of ACE inhibitors and ARBS as first-line treatment for patients with kidney disease. They reviewed and analyzed findings from 127 studies that examined blood pressure-lowering drugs on the progression of kidney disease.

They found that ACE inhibitors and ARBS performed no better than other blood pressure-lowering drugs for the prevention of diabetic kidney disease. It was also unclear whether these two drug classes were more effective in patients with non-diabetic kidney disease.

McAllister also noted that the study will not be welcome news for some pharmaceutical companies.

But it will certainly please those consumers who are already strapped and struggling with the high cost of blood pressure and kidney disease drug.