Patients with high blood pressure ‘are twice as likely to die from Covid-19’
PATIENTS with raised blood pressure have a two-fold increased risk of dying from Covid-19, new research revealed yesterday.
The researchers, who included a team from NUI Galway, found that patients with high blood pressure who were not taking medication to control it were at even greater risk of dying from the virus. The findings were published in the ‘European Heart Journal’. The expert team at NUI Galway collaborated with a team in China.
They analysed data from 2,866 patients with Covid19 who were admitted to Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, China, between February 5 and March 15.
Of these patients, 29.5pc (850) had a medical history of high blood pressure. They found that 34 out of 850 coronavirus patients with high blood pressure died compared with 22 out of 2,027 patients without the condition. This was a 2.12-fold increased risk after adjustment for factors that could affect the results, such as age, sex and other medical conditions.
Among the patients with high blood pressure who were not taking medication for the condition, 11 out of 140 died from coronavirus. This compared with 23 out of 710 of those who were on blood pressure treatment. This amounts to 2.17-fold increased risk after adjusting for confounding factors.
The researchers include Professors Patrick W Serruys, Osama Soliman and Yoshi Onuma, who recently joined experts in the field of cardiology at NUI Galway.
Prof Serruys said: “There are three remaining questions, and we hope our clinical trial in Ireland will answer the first two: what kind of medication should be given to Covid-19 patients with high blood pressure – RAAS (renin– angiotensin–aldosterone system) inhibitors or nonRAAS inhibitors. And could these medications mitigate the risk of dying in these patients? The last question is whether or not RAAS inhibitors influence the risk of infection for Covid-19.”
As this is a retrospective and observational study, it cannot show a causal relationship between RAAS inhibitors and the risk of dying from Covid-19. Other limitations include the inability to include all relevant confounding factors.