Millions more Britons could be prescribed pills that lower their blood pressure to help ward off strokes and heart attacks, a study has suggested.
Researchers found that blood pressure-lowering medication reduces the risk of serious heart conditions – even in adults with healthy blood pressure.
The benefits of treatment in preventing strokes, heart disease and death were found to be similar regardless of the starting blood pressure level of the patient, and whether or not they had pre-existing heart conditions.
Experts said the findings have important implications for current NHS guidelines that typically limit the medication to those with high blood pressure. Lead author Professor Kazem Rahimi, from the University of Oxford, said: ‘Our findings are of great importance to the debate concerning blood pressure treatment.