Blood pressure drugs may slow weight loss

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – In older patients with
congestive heart failure or high blood pressure, treatment with
a type of blood pressure lowering drug, called
angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, appears to slow
unintentional weight loss, researchers report in the Journal of
the American Geriatric Society.

The investigators note that weight loss is associated with
higher mortality in patients with heart failure. As lead
investigator Gina D. Schellenbaum told Reuters Health “in this
observational study, the use of ACE inhibitors was associated
with weight maintenance.”

Schellenbaum of the University of Washington, Seattle and
colleagues examined data on a community-based group of almost
6,000 elderly patients.

The group included 2,834 individuals receiving treatment
for high blood pressure and 342 with congestive heart failure.
Sixty-seven percent of the patients with congestive heart
failure also had high blood pressure and four percent of those
with high blood pressure also had congestive heart failure.

The average weight loss amounted to 0.84 lbs. annually in
the high blood pressure group and 1.4 lbs. in the congestive
heart failure group.

After accounting for other possible contributing factors,
ACE inhibitor use was associated with 0.38 lbs. less weight
loss in the high blood pressure group and 0.64 lbs. less loss
in the congestive heart failure group.

In light of these results, the researchers conclude that
some of the benefits patients receive from ACE inhibitors “may
be due to weight maintenance.” However, concluded Schellenbaum,
“this finding needs to be verified in clinical trials — and
there is at least one underway.”

SOURCE: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society,
November 2005.