[neverdem]

These drugs(beta blockers) could possibly cause more problems than the high blood pressure if the patient is experiencing high blood pressure due to syndrome X. They can worsen insulin resistance.

Enter (diuretics OR beta blockers) AND mortality into PubMed. It might take a month of Sundays just to read the abstracts. Diuretics can have similar adverse metabolic effects, yet these older drugs are still advocated as first line therapies. It's too bad, but medicine is not simple.

Mechanism of differential effects of antihypertensive agents on serum lipids.

" beta-Blockers and diuretics tend to negatively affect both glucose tolerance and plasma lipids."

[Nov3]

I believe Dr. Atkins was right. The most important indice you can treat in older patients is their insulin sensitivity. As he said in one of his posts on his BBS if you get the insulin and sugar levels in the low normal range all the other problems including blood pressure, lipids etc will almost always go away.

He advocated diet(of course), minerals (vanadyl and chromium) and I believe metformin. He strongly opposed any drug that would either destroy insulin sensitivity (beta blockers) or any drug that would up your body's ability to produce insulin (some of the oral anti-diabetics). He said that if you treat the symptoms incorrectly you will end up treating them forever.

I wish it was all that simple. Maybe to a degree it is. I do know this nothing good can come from a destroyed sensitivity to insulin and the resultant sky high insulin levels that are necessary to live with it.