By: Thomas Pickering, MD, DPhil, FRCP, Director of Integrative and Behavioral Cardiology Program
of the Cardiovascular Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York.
Teveten is the latest addition to the class of antihypertensive drugs known as the angiotensin receptor blockers. One of the main effects of angiotensin is to constrict the arteries, and hence, to raise blood pressure. It does this by attaching to receptors on the surface of the muscle cells, which then signal the muscle to contract. The angiotensin receptor blockers work by occupying the receptors and preventing angiotensin from getting to them.
Teveten is an effective blood pressure lowering medication, which is taken once or twice a day, and like others in its class, is more effective when combined with a diuretic. One of the features that makes angiotensin receptor blockers so popular is that they generally have less side effects than other classes of antihypertensive drugs, and do not make people cough, which is the major side effect of he ACE inhibitors, to which they are related.
