Healthcare

Beta blocker or beta-adrenagic agent is a group of synthetic drugs used in the treatment of a wide range of diseases and conditions of the sympathetic nervous system.

It is prescribed to control anxiety, hypertension, and a variety of cardiac conditions, including angina pectoris, cardiac arrythmias, and heart attack.

While the side effect of this type of drugs, included shortness of breathing, discomfort in the upper stomach, sudden constriction of the muscle in the walls of the bronchioles, excessive cold, diarrhea, risk of cardiac arrest, abnormal low blood pressure, heart failure, fatigue, heart block, impairment in spatial perception and stability, and much more, however, every drugs in this class also had different in components.

Therefore, due to different component of each drugs, the investigator looked at each drugs’ effects from heart failure patients who had took beta blockers based on database of hospital discharge and prescription claim from the Quebec government administrative database.

For instance, the study authors, Dr. Darius Lucian Lazarus from McGill University in Montreal and colleagues said that they did not find evidence of a class effect for beta blockers in heart failure patients.

According to the findings, the crude incidence of death over a mean follow-up of 1.8 years was;
- 47% with Metoprolol,
- 40% with Atenolol,
- 43% with Acebutolol,
- 41% with Carvedilol, and
- 36% with Bisoprolol.

However, for hazard ratio (HR) of mortality based on multivariate Cox proportional was similar with Carvedilolk and Bisoprolol (HR: 1.04 vs 0.96, respectively) compared to Metoprolol, but significantly lower with Atenolol (HR 0.82) and Acebutolol (HR 0.86).

Overall, reported in the American Journal of Cardiology on February 23, 2011, the investigators found that beta blocker had different effects in patient with heart failure.