COVID-19: do blood pressure medicines increase risk?

by | Coronavirus - COVID-19, Dementia, Heart Attacks and Strokes, Pharmacy Care

This is an active debate at the moment. The blood pressure medications that we’re talking about here are ARBs or ACE inhibitors, the two types of drug. And they supposedly stimulate the production of the lock and key mechanism in your lung, the ACE-2 receptor, into which the virus fits and therefore if you produce more of these then the virus could be more likely to get into your body. So this is theoretical.

There’s a little bit of evidence to support the claim. People can’t quite work out why is high blood pressure a risk factor for getting severe COVID-19 disease at the moment. People say, “Well, it must be the drugs.”

The International Hypertension Society has said they don’t see the evidence at the moment but I think that you need to be prudent, you need to talk to your GP about it.

If you’re worried, there are other medications you can be on for your blood pressure. But you need your blood pressure treated because blood pressure is toxic. It can cause dementia, it can cause strokes, it can cause heart attacks. You need your blood pressure controlled.