Common Blood Pressure Drugs May Increase Risk of Depression

LONDON:
Medication for blood pressure may affect your mental well-being, warn researchers. (Shutterstock)
Have you ever felt depressed when taking medicines for blood pressure? Turns out some commonly prescribed blood pressure pills may increase risk of mood disorders such as depression or bipolar disorder.
“Mental health is under-recognised in hypertension clinical practice, and the possible impact of antihypertensive drugs on mental health is an area that physicians should be aware of and consider if the treatment of high blood pressure is having a negative impact on their patient’s mental health,” said
Sandosh Padmanabhan, Professor at University of Glasgow in Britain.
In this study, researchers compared four common classes of antihypertensive drugs and risk of mood disorders.
They collected data on 525,046 patients (ages 40-80) from two large secondary care Scottish hospitals.
The researchers selected 144,066 patients being treated for hypertension with either angiotensin antagonists, beta blocker, calcium channel blockers or thiazide diuretics.
They were compared to a group of 111,936 patients not taking any of those drugs.
Researchers followed the patients for five years documenting hospitalisation for mood disorders, such as depression or bipolar disorder.