MedPage Today reports, “Older patients with isolated systolic hypertension gained an extra day of life expectancy for every month of treatment with diuretic-based stepped care, according to long-term follow-up of a randomized trial” published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Investigators found that “patients randomized to chlorthalidone (a diuretic or “fluid pill”) for 4.5 years had a 105-day improvement in all-cause mortality and a 158-day gain in freedom from cardiovascular death compared with placebo treatment.”
According to HeartWire, the investigators wrote that the research “is a strong message that may result in increased patient adherence to drug therapy and decrease the degree of therapeutic inertia by healthcare providers.”