A widely used type of blood pressure medicine may be linked to a higher chance of glaucoma, according to research from the United Kingdom.
The finding could be important because millions of people take these medicines every day to control high blood pressure and other heart problems.
The medicines are called calcium channel blockers, or CCBs. They relax blood vessels by limiting the movement of calcium into certain muscle cells, which can lower blood pressure and reduce the heart’s workload.
Common CCBs include medicines used to treat high blood pressure, chest pain, and some abnormal heart rhythms. They can be very important for preventing serious problems linked to uncontrolled blood pressure, including heart attack and stroke.
Researchers led by Dr. Alan Kastner at Moorfields Eye Hospital and University College London examined health information from more than 427,000 people in the UK Biobank. More than 33,000 participants were taking calcium channel blockers.
The team compared medicine use with glaucoma diagnoses and measurements of the eye. They also considered factors that could affect the results, including age, lifestyle, blood pressure, and other health conditions.
People taking calcium channel blockers were more likely to have glaucoma than people who were not taking them. The researchers did not find the same pattern with several other major types of blood pressure medicine.
Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases that damage the optic nerve, which carries visual information from the eye to the brain. The damage usually develops slowly and can cause permanent vision loss if the condition is not detected and treated.
High pressure inside the eye is one of the best-known risk factors for glaucoma. However, glaucoma can also develop in people whose eye pressure is within the normal range, which means other processes can damage the optic nerve.
That point was especially interesting in this study. The researchers did not find evidence that calcium channel blocker use was linked to higher pressure inside the eye, suggesting that any possible connection with glaucoma may involve another pathway.
Scientists do not yet know what that pathway might be. One possibility is that the medicines could influence blood flow or other processes that help keep the optic nerve healthy, but more research is needed before researchers can explain the association.
The study cannot prove that calcium channel blockers cause glaucoma. Because it was based on health records and observations rather than an experiment in which people were randomly assigned medicines, other differences between patients could partly explain the results.
People taking calcium channel blockers should therefore not stop their medicine because of this study. Suddenly changing blood pressure treatment without medical advice can be dangerous, and the proven benefits of controlling high blood pressure remain important.
The findings may instead give doctors another reason to pay attention to eye health in patients who already have a higher risk of glaucoma. Risk rises with age and can also be affected by family history and other health factors.
Glaucoma is sometimes called the “silent thief of sight” because early disease often causes no obvious symptoms. Regular eye examinations can detect warning signs before a person notices major changes in vision.
The research was published in JAMA Ophthalmology. The authors said further studies are needed to confirm the connection and determine whether calcium channel blockers directly affect the development or progression of glaucoma.
For now, the study raises an important question rather than providing a reason to avoid these medicines. Better research could eventually help doctors balance heart and eye health when choosing long-term blood pressure treatments.
If you care about blood pressure, please read studies about unhealthy habits that could increase high blood pressure risk, and people with severe high blood pressure should reduce coffee intake.
For more information about blood pressure, please see recent studies that early time-restricted eating could help improve blood pressure, and results showing plant-based foods could benefit people with high blood pressure.
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