Drugs commonly used to treat high blood pressure, and prevent heart attacks and strokes, are associated with significantly worse cardiovascular outcomes in hypertensive African Americans compared to whites, according to a new comparative effectiveness research study led by researchers in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Medical Center. The study, published on September 15 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), is unique, the authors say, in that it evaluates racial differences in cardiovascular outcomes and mortality between hypertensive black and white patients whose treatment was initiated with angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, outside of a clinical trial. ACE inhibitors are one of several classes of drugs commonly prescribed to individuals with hypertension to prevent deaths, heart attack, kidney failure, heart failure and stroke.

Evidence from randomized controlled trials has previously indicated that ACE inhibitors may not provide the same benefits in blacks compared to whites. However, blacks have been largely underrepresented in the majority of these studies, despite the fact they have disproportionately higher rates of hypertension-related morbidity and mortality than other racial and ethnic groups, according to study authors. 

"We know what works in clinical trials. But when you go into the real world clinical practice setting, physicians don't often translate that evidence into practice. This is the first study that looks at this issue in a real- world, clinical practice setting," says Gbenga Ogedegbe, MD, MPH, lead author of the study and a professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Medical Center.