Summary on Nifedipine and Captopril in Treating Hypertension

Abstract

Hypertension, a chronic disease, is one of the major health problems worldwide and needs to be controlled through education, early diagnosis and effective management. Two of the most prescribed medications for treating hypertension are nifedipine and captopril. The first chapter gives some background information on hypertension then, the mechanism and target of two drugs are explained. Both of them effectively lower the blood pressure of patients after. Nifedipine achieves this by blocking L-type calcium channels, while captopril produces the same effect by inhibiting the catalysis process of ATI to ATII of ACE. Next, the article moves on to review existing literature on cross-over comparison between nifedipine and captopril and concludes some common trends revealed by previous studies. It was found that nifedipine and captopril have approximately the same level of effectiveness but captopril tends to give less adverse reactions. In addition, synthesize methods of two drugs are also mentioned and compared.