A Comparative Literature Review Exploring Hypertension Drugs that Lower Target Organ Damage Above and Beyond Reducing Blood Pressure Based on Research Studies Between 1992 and 2006

Approximately 65 million individuals in the United States suffer from systemic hypertension. Hypertension leads to various cardiovascular diseases including myocardial infarction, stroke, kidney disease, and others. Hypertension is commonly linked to other risk factors for cardiovascular diseases such as diabetes, dyslipidemia, and smoking. For this study, we reviewed 24 recently published papers that compared different hypertension drugs with other drugs or placebo in their effectiveness to reduce blood pressure and major primary end points. We hypothesized that some drugs reduce the primary end point above and beyond simply reducing the blood pressure. We categorized papers into a number of groups to determine how many papers showed that drug vs. placebo or one drug regimen versus another drug regimen could better reduce a primary clinical end point independent of a better reduction in blood pressure. We found four papers that showed a benefit of a pharmacological regimen on major clinical end points above and beyond reduction of blood pressure. These findings primarily involve drugs that affect the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system.