Antihypertensive Agents

Abstract

Hypertension, as a disease entity, is one of the most insidious causes of morbidity and mortality known to man. It is sometimes referred to as the ‘silent disease’ since its effects come on gradually with slowly rising systolic and diastolic blood pressure over a number of years. Since most people, for a variety of reasons, do not have annual physical examinations the rise in blood pressure goes unnoticed until a critical condition is manifested in the form of stroke, renal damage and/or cardiac problems which eventually result in myocardial infarctions. Fortunately, within the past 20 years through the superb research efforts of medicinal scientists in academia as well as those in the laboratories of the major pharmaceutical companies, a group of antihypertensive agents have been discovered, developed and brought to the medical community to treat this disease effectively. It is now well recognized, as will be shown in the ensuing sections of this chapter, that the antihypertensive drugs available to the physician, are indeed effective in controlling the various forms of known hypertension, from the mild to the most severe. The major problem is the early diagnosis of the disease which can only be determined by annual physical examination. In the United States alone it is estimated that almost 25,000,000 persons have hypertension and many, many are not aware of it. Only about 20% of these individuals are being treated by means of chemotherapy for the disease.