To uncover this link, researchers studied hospital data on 144,066 patients between 40 and 80 years old who had been taking blood pressure medication for at least 90 days. They were compared to 11,936 patients who were not on blood pressure medication.
They found over a five-year period, 299 patients were hospitalized for a mood disorder, and people on beta-blockers and calcium antagonists were more likely than people on angiotensin antagonists to be hospitalized. In fact, people on angiotensin antagonists were less likely to be hospitalized for a mood disorder than people on no blood pressure medication at all.
Despite these findings, the study’s authors do not recommend people change what kind of medication they are taking for blood pressure.
“People need to take their drugs because these drugs are effective at preventing heart attack and stroke,” Dr. Sandosh Padmanabhan, the study’s senior author with the University of Glasgow in the U.K., told Reuters Health.
More articles on patient safety:
Hospital beds’ antibiotic history can put future patients at risk for C. diff
Which factors most influence physicians’ intentions to admit to medical errors? 3 insights
Nurse Assist recalls syringes linked to 30+ bloodstream infections in 4 states
