Are you taking a blood pressure medication linked to suicide?

Say you started taking a new blood pressure medication, and you suddenly felt nauseous and dizzy all the time. What would you do? Probably head to your doc, tell her that the new medication is causing side effects and ask her about alternatives.

But what if you started taking a new blood pressure medication, and you suddenly felt more anxious and depressed than normal. Would you head to your doc for that too? Or would you shrug it off? Or maybe not even connect it to the medication at all?

The medications you take for physical ailments don’t just affect your physical health. They affect your mental health too. But mental symptoms are more easily overlooked. If you’re suddenly feeling down or anxious, you may not immediately connect it to your blood pressure medication. Especially, if no one warned you about mental health side effects.

But do you know the scariest part? Undetected mental health side effects are just as serious as physical side effects… sometimes even more serious. In fact, they can quickly become life-threatening.

Do ARBs make people more likely to commit suicide?

One of the most popular types of blood pressure medicines — angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) — could be connected to a higher risk of suicide.

A new study from researchers at St. Michaels Hospital in Toronto found that people taking ARBs have a much higher risk of suicide than people taking another kind of blood pressure medication, Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE inhibitors).

Researchers pulled data from a Canadian health database. They found 964 people who committed suicide 100 days after receiving a prescription for ARBs or an ACE inhibitor. They also looked at data from a control group of 3,000 people taking either one of those drugs.

When they crunched all the numbers, the suicide risk for people taking ARBs was significantly higher. They were 63 percent more likely to kill themselves than people taking ACE inhibitors.

The study couldn’t prove a cause-effect relationship between suicide and ARBs. But this isn’t the first time ARBs have been connected to higher suicide risk. So, should you be worried?

Well, researchers warned that there’s not enough evidence to recommend taking everyone off ARBs. But they also warned that people prone to mood disorders (major depression, bipolar disorder, dysthymia, etc.) should be extra cautious with these medications. And the study’s lead researcher said he would certainly choose an ACE inhibitor over ARBs if he were a patient.

Of course, ACE inhibitors are far from risk-free. One recent study found that long-term use of these blood medications shows that they may increase your risk of lung cancer.

Making big decisions about blood pressure treatment

In the end, all you can do is talk to your doctor about which blood pressure medication is right for you based on your health history. And of course, make good lifestyle choices so, hopefully, you can lower your medication dosage… or maybe even wean yourself off meds (with your doctor’s assistance) eventually.

If you’re overweight, losing weight can make a big difference in your blood pressure. And you only have to lose five to ten percent of your body weight to see a change. Diets like the Mediterranean diet and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet are both proven to lower blood pressure too. And, of course, regular exercise can make a world of difference in your blood pressure readings. There’s even evidence that exercise can lower blood pressure as much as meds.

So, tackle high blood pressure from multiple angles. And in the future, who knows? Maybe you’ll be working with your doctor to leave blood pressure meds (and their side effects) behind you.

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Sources:

1. Certain blood pressure meds tied to suicide risk in study — MedicalXpress
2. High blood pressure medicines — MedlinePlus
3. Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors and risk of lung cancer: population-based cohort study — BMJ
4. Mood Disorders — John Hopkins Medicine
5. Blood pressure medication: Still necessary if I lose weight? — Mayo Clinic