Pfizer: Study shows amlodipine lowers blood pressure, cuts diabetes risk

By E. Janene Geiss

Philadelphia, Sept. 6 - Pfizer Inc. said Wednesday that a hypertension regimen based on the calcium channel blocker amlodipine has been shown to reduce the risk of new-onset diabetes by 34% in people with high blood pressure, compared with a widely used beta-blocker-based antihypertensive regimen, according to findings from one of the largest studies of hypertensive patients ever conducted in Europe with nearly 20,000 patients.

Results of the study were presented Wednesday at the World Congress of Cardiology in Barcelona, Spain, the New York pharmaceutical company said in a news release.

The Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial compared the regimen of the beta-blocker atenolol plus or minus the diuretic bendroflumethiazide or the regimen of the calcium-channel blocker amlodipine plus or minus the angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor perindopril for control of hypertension.

Of 19,257 patients enrolled in the study, 14,120 did not have diabetes at the outset and 1,366 of these patients developed diabetes over the study period: 567, or 8%, in the amlodipine arm and 799, or 11.4%, in the atenolol arm.

The study also showed that patients who received the beta-blocker based regimen were at increased risk of new-onset diabetes irrespective of all other diabetes risk factors.

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