Blood Pressure, The Heart, and COVID-19: New Insights

Dr. Mandeep Mehra of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital has emerged as a frequently quoted thought leader concerning the nature of COVID-19. Many of us have been waiting for information concerning which blood pressure medications seem to help COVID-19 sufferers, and now Dr. Mehra has spoken.

“Among medications, ACE inhibitors and statins were more commonly used by survivors than by nonsurvivors (Table 2), whereas no association between survival and the use of ARBs was found.” … “Neither harmful nor beneficial associations were noted for antiplatelet therapy, beta-blockers, or hypoglycemic therapy.” [Ref: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2007621]

FLASH! Unfortunately, Dr. Mehra and his team have had to withdraw their New England Journal of Medicine paper after a company they relied on for their data refused to comply with an audit. This is a breaking development; the Parkchester Times is working to understand what it means relative to the statement above. For more see https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/86887.

This is especially important in light of what makes COVID-19 different from other repiratory viral infections: it’s not just respiratory. Dr. Mehra is quoted on the subject in this excellent article by Dana Smith, writing for Medium.com: https://elemental.medium.com/coronavirus-may-be-a-blood-vessel-disease-which-explains-everything-2c4032481ab2.

In light of these developments, new questions are already being formulated and researched. Some are related to blood coagulation and anticoagulant medications, a complex area of pharmacology when it comes to what a doctor can recommend people take at home. For now we’d like to commend these important articles to you, and ask you to consider what they mean.