Blood pressure drug cuts Covid death risk by third

patients with high blood pressure. The study showed that patients with high blood pressure were 33 per cent less likely to die or be placed on a ventilator if they were taking ACE inhibitors.

More research is needed to see if the drugs could treat coronavirus in patients who do not have high blood pressure.

Experts said the findings are hugely reassuring for millions of patients on the medication. It follows fears that ACE inhibitors may in fact worsen Covid-19 as they reduce blood pressure by increasing levels of ACE2 receptors on the surface of a patient’s cells.

Covid-19 uses the same receptor to lock on to cells and invade the body. Lead author Dr Vassilios Vassiliou suggested the drugs may reduce the risk of dying from Covid by keeping blood pressure under control and decreasing inflammation in the body.

He said: ‘We can now very conclusively say that if you are being prescribed this medication you should keep taking it and it will not increase death or critical events, in fact it could save your life.’

He added that ACE inhibitors and ARBs may also reduce the severity of coronavirus among patients who take the medication for other conditions, such as diabetes or kidney failure.

‘For patients who were taking the medication but did not have high blood pressure we could see a trend towards them having better outcomes but it didn’t reach statistical significance. We can say it was definitely not harmful.’

He added: ‘We have shown that patients who have been prescribed the medication before they got

Covid are better off. We do not have any evidence that if somebody got Covid-19 today and you gave them the medication they might be better off.’

The most popular versions of the drugs are Ramipril, Losartan, Lisinopril and Candesartan, according to NHS data.

Professor Sir Nilesh Samani, medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: ‘This study, which is a collation of all the evidence to date, provides further reassurance for patients and GPs.

‘The finding that these drugs may be associated with lower risk of severe Covid-19 disease is interesting but should be treated with caution as it is not based on randomised clinical trials.’

The study, published in the Current Atherosclerosis Reports journal, is the largest and most detailed such study to date.