Jane Brody, the NY Times’ excellent reporter on health and fitness issues, provides this good overview of the current treatment options for high blood pressure, including this summary of the current drugs that are most commonly prescribed. My late father was one of the pioneers in the development of the first drugs and treatment protocols for hypertension.

As this earlier post noted, if FDR’s physicians had known in 1945 what doctors know today about the damaging effects of high blood pressure, those physicians would not have recommended that the seriously ailing FDR be allowed to go toe-to-toe with an avaricious Stalin at Yalta. Even a relatively short delay in the insight gained from scientific research can have a major impact on the course of mankind.