Once, there was a team of scientists from St. Michael’s Hospital who were curious about the effects of certain blood pressure medications on people’s mental health.
They were especially interested in two common types of medications: ARBs (angiotensin receptor blockers) and ACE inhibitors.
Both of these medicines are used to treat high blood pressure, and they work by dealing with a hormone in the body named angiotensin II. This hormone usually makes blood vessels tight.
The ARBs stop this hormone from working properly, so the blood vessels don’t become tight. The ACE inhibitors go one step further by reducing the amount of this hormone in the body.
These drugs are not only for high blood pressure but also for other health issues like heart problems, kidney disease, and diabetes.
The scientists decided to investigate whether people taking these medicines were more likely to feel so unhappy that they might consider ending their own lives. To do this, they looked at health records from Canada.
They found 964 people who had sadly taken their own lives within 100 days of being prescribed either an ARB or an ACE inhibitor. They wanted to compare these people with others who were also taking these blood pressure medicines but didn’t harm themselves.
Their findings were surprising. They noticed that people taking the ARBs were more likely to take their own lives compared to those on ACE inhibitors. To be specific, the risk was 63% higher for those on ARBs. That’s a big difference!
The scientists thought this might be because ARBs can cause the angiotensin II hormone to increase in the brain. This hormone might have something to do with how we feel emotionally, possibly leading to very sad feelings and thoughts about suicide.
However, there were other things to consider too. Some of the people in the study were also taking medicines for depression or anxiety. These conditions themselves can affect someone’s likelihood of feeling suicidal.
The scientists were careful to say that this finding was just a starting point. They needed to do more research to be sure about the link between ARBs and suicide risk. But, they did suggest that it might be safer to choose an ACE inhibitor over an ARB, just to be on the safe side.
The person who led this research was Muhammad Mamdani, who works at the Applied Health Research Center. Their study was published in a well-known medical journal, JAMA Network Open.
This research is important because it reminds us that medicines can affect not just our physical health but also our mental well-being. It also shows how careful scientists need to be when they suggest one medicine over another.
The more we understand about these effects, the better we can care for our health – both body and mind.
If you care about high blood pressure, please read studies about unhealthy habits that may increase high blood pressure risk, and drinking green tea could help lower blood pressure.
For more information about mental health, please see recent studies that ultra-processed foods may make you feel depressed, and extra-virgin olive oil could reduce depression symptoms.
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