ÇKraft Foods 200

healthy you [

HEART HEALTH

Take The Pressure Off

N e w f i n d i n g s in b l o o d p r e s s u r e t r e a t m e n t c a n s a v e y o u r lif e .

RY

KELLY GARRETT

250 OCTOBER 2008 BETTER HOMES AND

GARDENS

E

arlier this year, doctors

presented the results

of a large-scale blood

pressure study that

involved

1 1 ,0 0 0

patients at 550 study

sites across the United States and

Scandinavia. What was so unique

about this study is that it was

stopped early, because the drug being

tested was so much better than

standard blood-pressure medication

at preventing heart attacks that it

was considered unethical not to let

all the volunteer subjects in on the

good thing as soon as possible.

The drug, Lotrel, is a combination

of older antihypertensives. It

combines a calcium channel blocker

and an ACE inhibitor, classes of

drugs that have treated high blood

pressure separately for decades.

But together, they’re much more

effective. “The results were very

dramatic,” says Dr. Michael Weber, a

cardiologist at the SUNY Downstate

Medical Center in Brooklyn.

LOWER IS BETTER

Doctors are more aggressively

treating high blood pressure, a big-

time risk factor for heart disease and

Shredded

Wheat*"

Original

STRAIGHT UR

PHOTO: VEER