Two pills are better than one

HEALTH

A combination of two blood pressure-lowering drugs may help victims of Type 2 diabetes.

There are some things that even the most careful diabetic cannot avoid "" the wrath of diabetes. Diabetes is not a condition that affects your sugar intake alone.

As it progresses, in degree or in time, diabetes spreads its tentacles into other parts of your body, gradually affecting your heart, kidneys, your eyes and even your nerves.

Yes, medication and controlled lifestyle can push back the advent of these problems by some years, but eventually, they all attempt a strike. However, now, there might be hope.

Combining two blood pressure-lowering drugs in diabetics could drastically reduce risk of death by 14 per cent, risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 18 per cent, risk of kidney disease by 14 per cent and risk of coronary heart disease by 14 per cent, the largest ever study of treatment for Type 2 diabetes reveals.

The Action in Diabetes and Vascular Disease (ADVANCE) study, presented at the European Congress of Cardiology in Vienna recently and published in the Lancet medical journal, has raised hopes for the 30-35 million diabetics in India. In fact, of the 20 countries and 11,140 diabetics who participated, 480 were Indians.

The study was conducted on Type 2 diabetics who were at high risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Says Dr Nikhil Tandon, professor of endocrinology at AIIMS and one of the leaders of the study in India, "It was mandatory that all the patients were suffering from Type 2 diabetes and were also either at a high risk of contracting a cardiovascular disease or had already suffered a heart attack or chest pain."

Half the patients received daily treatment with a single tablet combining two blood pressure-lowering drugs (4 mg of a blood vessel relaxant called perindopril, with 1.25 mg of a diuretic called indapamide) and the other half received a matching inactive placebo for almost five years.

Patients with an average blood pressure of 134/74 were given the tablet regardless of whether they were suffering from high blood pressure or not.

Previously, the medicines perindopril and indapamide were used separately for lowering blood pressure.