Tolerability and well-being with indapamide in the treatment of mild-moderate hypertension: An Italian multicenter study

Abstract

Since hypertension is an important risk factor of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality that can be at least in part decreased by pharmacologic reduction in elevated blood pressure, it is necessary that an antihypertensive agent be effective, but at the same time well tolerated and, according to some recent hypotheses, have no deleterious effect on serum electrolyte levels, as well as lipoprotein and glucose tolerance. However, due to different cultural and social backgrounds, lifestyles, and so on, the tolerability may differ from one population to another and the conclusions drawn from a population cannot be extrapolated to people of other countries. For these reasons, the well-being of patients, as well as the tolerability of indapamide, a non-thiazide diuretic, have been investigated in patients with hypertension of mild and moderate degree from different parts of Italy with a satisfactory blood-pressure response to this drug (−22.8 ± 0.6/−17.1 ± 0.5 mm Hg). Simultaneous to the significant blood-pressure reduction, the only significant change among the metabolic effects was a slight reduction in plasma potassium levels (−0.37 ± 0.03 meq/liter). The tolerability was, on the whole, very good with a tendency toward an improvement of well-being in patients, the majority of whom were already asymptomatic before starting the treatment. Since hypertension is an important risk factor of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality that can be at least in part decreased by pharmacologic reduction in elevated blood pressure, it is necessary that an antihypertensive agent be effective, but at the same time well tolerated and, according to some recent hypotheses, have no deleterious effect on serum electrolyte levels, as well as lipoprotein and glucose tolerance. However, due to different cultural and social backgrounds, lifestyles, and so on, the tolerability may differ from one population to another and the conclusions drawn from a population cannot be extrapolated to people of other countries. For these reasons, the well-being of patients, as well as the tolerability of indapamide, a non-thiazide diuretic, have been investigated in patients with hypertension of mild and moderate degree from different parts of Italy with a satisfactory blood-pressure response to this drug (−22.8 ± 0.6/−17.1 ± 0.5 mm Hg). Simultaneous to the significant blood-pressure reduction, the only significant change among the metabolic effects was a slight reduction in plasma potassium levels (−0.37 ± 0.03 meq/liter). The tolerability was, on the whole, very good with a tendency toward an improvement of well-being in patients, the majority of whom were already asymptomatic before starting the treatment.