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A COVID Casualty: Fewer People Started Taking Blood Pressure Drugs

Fallout from the pandemic continues to draw concern about diseases overshadowed by COVID-19. A new analysis in Nature Medicine trains its sights on cardiovascular disease, studying the drugs people take to minimize risk factors for heart attacks and stroke. The researchers estimate that compared to 2019, nearly half a million fewer people in Britain started taking drugs to control their high blood pressure from when COVID first hit through July 2021. Using medication data as a proxy for care, the researchers predict more than 13,500 additional cardiovascular events, including more than 2,000 heart attacks and 3,000 strokes, could occur over people's lifetimes if they didn’t start taking blood pressure treatments. Read more from Stat and Nature Medicine here.