Long-Term Care Survey Alert

ACE inhibitors may do more than lower blood pressure and ease cardiac overload. Researchers at Wake Forest University found that, among older women, use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors may decrease or even stop the loss of muscle strength in elderly women with high blood pressure, even without congestive heart failure. Over three years, compared to women taking other hypertension medicines or no medications at all, women taking ACE inhibitors retained more muscle strength and experienced a decline in walking speed 10 times less severe, according to the study, which appeared in a recent issue of The Lancet.