Stress and blood pressure
Sir: To reply to your correspondents (10 January); taking drugs to lower blood pressure artificially is useless and dangerous because: 1. High blood pressure, though a risk factor in relation to heart disease, is not itself a disease. Eminent cardiologists from Sir James Mackenzie to Sir George Pickering have contended that it is a symptom; and medical students are surely still taught that simple symptom-removal, without reference to the cause, is a cardinal sin.
2. Mackenzie's surmise that high blood pressure is a physiological process 'for the benefit of the organism' has been abundantly confirmed. High blood pressure is a stress warning. Remove the stress, and it falls. There are now a variety of simple techniques whereby anybody can learn relaxation, and watch his blood pressure fall.
3. Apart from being unnecessary and expensive, these drugs are a menace, as their track record shows. Nearly 20 years ago William Evans warned that he had known 58 of them, all soundly recommended: 'The earlier ones, though failing to do good, did no harm; but latterly the more potent drugs have produced uncomfortable and distressing side-effects'. He could say that again. Even leaving aside the disastrous Eraldin, the side-effects of the 'beta-blockers', widely prescribed for hypertension (though their performance is erratic) have been causing increasing concern, periodically reflected in the Lancet and the British Medical Journal.
Brian Inglis 23 Lambolle Road, London NW3
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