Risk factors for heart, cerebrovascular, and kidney diseases: evaluation of potential side effects of medications to control hypertension, hyperglycemia, and hypercholesterolemia

Background

Heart disease (HD), cerebrovascular disease (CBD), and kidney disease (KD) are serious diseases worldwide. These diseases constitute the leading causes of death worldwide and are costly to treat. An analysis of risk factors is necessary to prevent these diseases.

Data and Methods

Risk factors were analyzed using data from 2,837,334, 2,864,874, and 2,870,262 medical checkups obtained from the JMDC Claims Database. The side effects of medications used to control hypertension (antihypertensive medications), hyperglycemia (antihyperglycemic medications), and hypercholesterolemia (cholesterol medications), including their interactions, were also evaluated. Logit models were used to calculate the odds ratios and confidence intervals. The sample period was from January 2005 to September 2019.

Results

Age and history of diseases were found to be very important factors, and the risk of having diseases could be almost doubled. Urine protein levels and recent large weight changes were also important factors for all three diseases and made the risks 10%-30% higher, except for KD. For KD, the risk was more than double for individuals with high urine protein levels. Negative side effects were observed with antihypertensive, antihyperglycemic, and cholesterol medications. In particular, when antihypertensive medications were used, the risks were almost doubled for HD and CBD. The risk would be triple for KD when individuals were taking antihypertensive medications. If they did not take antihypertensive medications and took other medications, these values were lower (20%-40% for HD, 50%-70% for CBD, and 60%-90% for KD). The interactions between the different types of medications were not very large. When antihypertensive and cholesterol medications were used simultaneously, the risk increased significantly in cases of HD and KD.

Conclusion

It is very important for individuals with risk factors to improve their physical condition for the prevention of these diseases. Taking antihypertensive, antihyperglycemic, and cholesterol medications, especially antihypertensive medications, may be serious risk factors. Special care and additional studies are necessary to prescribe these medications, particularly antihypertensive medications.

Limitations

No experimental interventions were performed. As the dataset was comprised of the results of health checkups of workers in Japan, individuals aged 76 and above were not included. Since the dataset only contained information obtained in Japan and the Japanese are ethnically homogeneous, potential ethnic effects on the diseases were not evaluated.

Heart diseases, hypertension and effects of antihypertensive medications: Is hypertension a true risk factor of heart diseases?

Background

Heart diseases (HD) are the leading cause of deaths in the world. Many studies have been done on the relationships among hypertension, HD and antihypertensive medications. Most of the studies find that hypertension is a significant risk factor of HD, but there are some studies in which hypertension is not a risk factor. As antihypertensive medications are routinely prescribed to prevent HD, it is necessary to evaluate the effects of these and other risk factors of HD.

Data and methods

The relationship between hypertension and HD was analyzed using 6,773,464 medical checkups obtained from the JMDC Claims Database obtained from January 2005 to September 2019. Factors potentially affecting HD, including blood pressures (BP) and usage of antihypertensive medications, were evaluated using 2,861,769 observations. To avoid the causality problem, probit models were used to analyze the probability of an individual who had no history of HD at year t developing HD by year t + 1.

Results

A positive relation between systolic blood pressure (SBP) and HD was found in the equation without any other covariates. However, the significant relation between HD and BP disappeared when the models contained various other factors as covariates. When a 10-year age or longer interval was used in the model, a positive relation between the two variables was found, suggesting that SBP works as a proxy variable. Taking antihypertensive medications greatly increases the probability of developing HD in the next year. Higher levels of cholesterols decrease the probability of developing HD.

Conclusion

Unlike many previous studies, no significant relationship between HD and hypertension was found in the models containing multiple covariates. The accepted relation might actually be spurious, and it is important to select covariates carefully. Taking antihypertensive medications appears to increase the probability of developing HD in the next year, suggesting the need for further research and greater caution in the use of antihypertensive medications.