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Heart disease is hardly a discriminating killer.
In fact, it claims well over half a million American lives each year. But new research finds that when it comes to controlling risk factors for cardiovascular disease, race plays a role.
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University of Florida researchers studied a cross-section of twenty-two-thousand Americans with heart disease and high blood pressure. One part of their research zeroed in on Hispanics, the fastest-growing ethnic minority in the U.S. The results showed that Hispanic heart patients had a nineteen percent increased risk of developing diabetes during the three years after the study.
But researchers found that drugs used primarily to lower blood pressure could also be tailored to lessen the risk of new diabetes. Overall, patients’ likelihood of developing diabetes was reduced by fifteen percent with the proper medication. The successful treatment strategy used a common ACE inhibitor along with the drug verapamil (ver-app-uh-mill).
Dr. Rhonda Cooper-DeHoff / UF heart specialist
"The use of the ACE inhibitor trandolapril in the verapamil strategy was able to significantly reduce the risk of developing diabetes in the Hispanic patients. That's an extremely important finding in a cohort of patients who're already at increased risk of developing diabetes."
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The results also showed that high blood pressure was much easier to bring under control in Hispanic study patients, and they required fewer drugs than their white or black counterparts. Hispanic patients also had fewer heart attacks and strokes. Ultimately, determining the most effective mix of medications is key, no matter what your ethnicity is.
Dr. Rhonda Cooper-DeHoff / UF heart specialist
"It still required at least two medications to lower blood pressure in Hispanic patients and almost three medications in non-Hispanic patients. So it's important to remember that combination therapy in most everybody is required to reduce blood pressure."
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At the University of Florida Health Science Center, I'm Mike Garrison
