High blood pressure is a major health issue in Australia, affecting one in three adults. It doesn’t always cause symptoms, but it can quietly damage the body, leading to serious problems like heart attacks, strokes, and kidney failure.
Unfortunately, many people don’t manage it properly. A 2017–2018 report showed that only one-third of Australians with high blood pressure had it under control, and this poor track record hasn’t changed much over the last decade.
But now, there’s a new approach that could change everything: the quadpill.
The quadpill is a single pill that combines very small doses of four widely used, low-cost blood pressure medications. It was developed and tested by researchers at The George Institute for Global Health. Dr. Emily Atkins, who led the study, believes it could significantly improve how high blood pressure is treated in Australia.
Between 2017 and 2020, her team studied 591 adults from ten clinics across the country. Half of the participants were given the quadpill, while the other half received a standard single blood pressure medicine. The researchers compared how effective each option was, as well as how much each one would cost over time.
The results were promising. People who took the quadpill had better blood pressure control than those on a single medicine. The cost of taking the quadpill for 12 weeks was $342, slightly more than the $277 cost of the regular drug.
That’s a difference of $65—but the benefits outweighed the extra cost. The quadpill was linked to a lower risk of heart attacks and strokes, and researchers estimated that the treatment would cost about $14,000 for each additional year of healthy life gained.
That may sound like a lot, but in the world of medicine, it’s considered cost-effective—especially for something as common and dangerous as high blood pressure. And there’s room to bring that cost down even further.
Dr. Atkins explained that upcoming changes to Australia’s medicine supply policy could make the quadpill even more affordable. If the supply period for blood pressure medicines was extended to 90 days instead of 60, the cost for each healthy year gained could drop to just $2,000.
Even more exciting, if the quadpill could be sold for less than 45 cents a day, it would actually be cheaper and more effective than many of the current treatments already in use. That makes it a powerful, affordable tool that could help millions of Australians stay healthier for longer.
Dr. Atkins and her team believe that starting treatment with the quadpill could become the new standard, helping patients get better results earlier and more reliably. Since many people need more than one medicine to control their blood pressure anyway, combining four small doses into one pill may be a smart and practical solution.
The full study was published in the Heart journal and adds strong evidence that a simple change in how we treat high blood pressure could save lives and reduce healthcare costs.
If you or someone you know has high blood pressure, it’s worth asking a doctor about the latest treatment options. The quadpill may not be widely available just yet, but it’s a hopeful sign that better, more affordable care could be just around the corner.
If you care about high blood pressure, please read studies that early time-restricted eating could help improve blood pressure, and natural coconut sugar could help reduce blood pressure and artery stiffness.
For more health information, please see recent studies about added sugar in your diet linked to higher blood pressure, and results showing vitamin D could improve blood pressure in people with diabetes.
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