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Blood pressure treatment is a super profitable business to the drug companies.
It is a $50 billion market.
Pharmaceutical business profits of the top 10 companies equal the rest of the Fortune 490 companies combined.
For the drug companies,
Anti-hypertensive drugs were the second largest therapy area.
A large portion of their profits come from selling high-priced blood pressure medication.
And that means convincing doctors to prescribe that expensive medication to you.
Now, the drug companies must prove that their drug lowers blood pressure to get the drug to market.
Unfortunately, they do NOT have to prove that the drug actually improves health or lengthens life.
All they have to prove is that it lowers blood pressure.
And they only have to do studies that are typically 12 months or so.
Plus, most of the studies are paid for by the drug companies themselves!
They often use contract research organizations who are incentivized to come up with positive results.
This is a shame for many reasons.
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One reason is that blood pressure medications tend to be very bad for men — and they ruin erections.
I get many, many emails from men who have erectile dysfunction and who are taking blood pressure medication.
There’s another reason that it’s a shame that so many men are taking this medication.
Lowering blood pressure is probably a bad idea for most men.
In fact, I have been showing you for a long time in this newsletter that high blood pressure is protective of health.
And it’s especially true as you age.
It boils down to this.
There was a great study in Finland done some years ago, with 2270 participants.
They were all aged 65 and older.
The researchers maintained very tight evaluations of these people over many years.
What this means is that they obtained death certificates for every member of the group who died.
I want to point out that what REALLY counts when it comes to a drug is how it lowers all-cause mortality.
It’s not enough that a drug lowers blood pressure if it kills you.
What you need is a drug that makes you live longer.
All-cause mortality is the key gauge for how effective or destructive a drug is.
In this case, results were quite plain that higher blood pressure led to a longer life expectancy:
In men 65 and younger, lower blood pressure correlated to a LOWER life expectancy.
The sweet spot for long life was less than 130 but over 75-84.
Notice that even ultra-low blood pressure for younger men did not increase life expectancy, but instead lowered it.
But this study was most striking for aging men.
Men over 75 had the best life expectancy with blood pressure exceeding 130 over 85.
Even 170 over 95 men had a longer life expectancy than lower blood pressure aging men.
This is not the only study that shows that having a higher blood pressure as you age is actually a benefit.
There are many such studies — I’ve shown you a few others in the past.
The fact is that if your blood pressure is lower than 170 or 180/90, and you’re in your 70s or 80s, you’re doing just fine.
But if you take blood pressure medication, you’re probably not doing so fine.
I am not a doctor, and I’m not qualified to give you medical advice.
So you have to talk to your doctor and make your own decision.
I’m just showing you the study.
And the study says that if you’re younger, lower blood pressure is helpful.
And it results in longer life expectancy.
But if you are older, low blood pressure actually lowers life expectancy — it’s unhealthy.
As the study notes:
In men aged older than 75 years old, low diastolic blood pressure was associated with the greatest all cause and cardiovascular mortality and higher diastolic blood pressure predicted survival.
So, if you were to stop taking your blood pressure medication, with your doctor’s blessing, you would benefit.
You would probably find that you have better erections — which is a huge benefit!
It’s part of the key to living a longer, healthier, and more pleasurable and valued life.
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