Читать книгу FIGHT BACK - Chauncey W. Crandall - Страница 17

In every country hit by the virus, one thing also stands out—having high blood pressure, or hypertension, also puts you at the highest risk for being hospitalized or dying if you get COVID-19.

But why is this so? One possible explanation is that having high blood pressure weakens the heart and makes people with it more vulnerable to pulmonary problems.

But there is another possible reason, and this has to do with how high blood pressure is treated. There is a controversy surrounding the common high blood pressure drugs called ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs).

Here’s the issue: When the coronavirus enters the body, it finds cells lined with ACE2 receptors to replicate and destroy. ACE inhibitors and ARBs, which are high blood pressure medications, can upgrade the number of ACE2 receptor sites, giving the virus more points in the body to attack and potentially making the disease outcome and course more severe and lethal.

Several medical associations, including the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association, contend that these concerns are unproven and people should continue to take these drugs as prescribed. There is also a contention that these drugs may actually help treat COVID-19 by providing decoy cells for the virus to attack.

But as there are other drugs that can lower blood pressure, most notably calcium channel blockers and beta-blockers, it seems to make sense to ask your doctor if one of these drugs would work just as well for you. Of course, never discontinue taking prescription drugs or change them without your doctor’s approval.