I’ve heard that people with high blood pressure are at higher risk for getting a more severe case of COVID-19.
My question is - I assume people who have blood pressure readings that are considered high are obviously at risk. What about people who have hypertension that is controlled by medication? Is their risk as high, or nearly as high, as those with untreated HBP?
The link is uncertain at this point. It could be a weakened immune response from the hypertension, or it could be the drugs used to treat it.
I hope I don’t mess this up because it gets into some technical medical stuff and I’m not a doctor, but my sister, who is a doctor, did her best to explain it to me.
Covid apparently infects people via the same cellular whatsamajig (not a technical term) that ACE inhibitor’s work with. So it might be that by taking ACE’s the body in return becomes more sensitive to what ACE the body still has, providing more channels by which covid can infect you and/or infect you more rapidly and in a more overwhelming fashion.
She then emphasized that it was a theory, not proven, not certain, and might be wrong… but it could explain why covid and high blood pressure is such a bad combination. If that is true (which is not proven) then this would be an instance where untreated high blood pressure MIGHT be less risky than treated high blood pressure, even if the treated person’s BP now reads as normal. Maybe. And, of course, untreated HBP carries a boatload of risks, too, like kidney damage, strokes…
But, again, I am not a doctor, do not have full understanding of the issues, and someone else might be along shortly to either better explain what I just said or present a different theory.
current expert consensus on ACE/ARB and covid:
Do not empirically discontinue ACE inhibitors and ARBs amid COVID-19 pandemic
There is speculation that patients with COVID-19 who are receiving angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) may be at increased risk for adverse outcomes . Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is a receptor for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19), and renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system inhibitors can increase ACE2 levels . Although patients with cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and diabetes who are infected with SARS-CoV-2 may have a more severe clinical course, there is no evidence to support an association of more severe infection with continuation of ACE inhibitors or ARBs, or decreased severity of COVID-19 after stopping these agents. Some large studies indicate no relationship between the use of these drugs and severity of COVID-19, whereas other data suggest that these agents may attenuate the severity of disease. Discontinuing ACE inhibitors or ARBs in some patients may exacerbate comorbid cardiovascular or kidney disease and lead to increased mortality. Thus, patients receiving ACE inhibitors or ARBs should continue treatment. This approach is supported by multiple guideline panels
That’s from UpToDate, a website for medical practitioners which summarizes current knowledge/practice. I’m high risk due to HTN, CAD, and other stuff myself, and staying on my ARB at present.
Unfortunately, in my experience, my mother-in-law, a lifelong hypertonic and constantly on drugs, was among the first to get infected, but recovered