Beta-Blockers Can Clean Up Arteries, Save Heart

Beta-blockers can help keep arteries from getting blocked, according to a study by researchers at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. The findings shed light on the action through which beta-blockers prevent heart attack and sudden heart death.

Beta-blockers are drugs administered to patients with high blood pressure to keep their pressure under control. They work by blocking stress causing, message-carrying chemicals such as epinephrine, adrenaline and norepinephrine.

While they do help regular heart rate, they can also cause fuzziness and sexual dysfunction in certain patients. This is the reason why despite being cheap and also available generically, beta-blockers don’t find as much use as recommended.

To check if beta-blockers can slow down clogging of arteries, Dr. Nissen and colleagues used results from four different trials involving 1500 heart patients. 1,100 of the patients were on beta-blocker treatment. Most of them were also taking multiple heart drugs such as aspirin, ACE inhibitors, calcium-channel blockers, nitrates and statins.

The researchers used their study to test and compare the effects of beta-blockers against other drugs. At the outset, the researchers observed that patients receiving beta-blockers had clogged arteries similar to those who were not receiving the drugs. However after the follow-up period, the group of patients on beta-blockers showed smaller blockages in their arteries. Patients not on beta-blockers on the other hand did not show any changes.

While the cleaning effect might be on account of the patients taking cholesterol-lowering statins, Dr. Nissen’s team made adjustments for the same and found that the effect of beta-blockers was independent of statin use.

“Beta blockers probably slow progression of coronary atherosclerosis,” wrote the researchers in their study findings published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. These are surprising findings because beta-blockers are normally used only to lower blood pressure and stress.

They are not designed to have any effect on atherosclerosis causing cholesterol or inflammation. Certain studies have found that beta-blockers can actually increase levels of certain types of cholesterol by reducing the HDL or “good” cholesterol and increasing triglyceride levels.

The new study is supported by several previous ones that have found beta-blockers to be helpful to the heart. Dr. Nissen’s team noted their findings support the continued use of beta-blockers for heart patients, as do several medical experts.

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