There are many medications that can be used to help control your high blood pressure, but in some cases, these drugs can also affect your cholesterol levels. Some may help, some may make it worse. Fortunately, even if some of these medications raise your cholesterol levels, the effect is only slight and temporary.
The following blood pressure medications have little effect, if any, on your cholesterol levels, including:
- reserpine (Sereplan)
- hydralazine (Apresoline)
- potassium sparing diuretics, like spironolactone (Aldactone)
- angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors – such as lisinopril (Zestril), ramipril (Altace), quinapril (Accupril), etc.
- angiotensin II receptor blockers – such as telmisartan (Micardis), valsartan (Diovan), losartan (Cozaar), etc.
- calcium channel blockers – such as amlodipine (Norvasc), felodipine (Plendil), verapamil (Verelan)
Other blood pressure medications may have a slightly negative effect on your cholesterol, raising your LDL, or “bad”, cholesterol, your total cholesterol, and triglycerides. These include:
- high doses of certain diuretics, like loop diuretics (furosemide, torsemide) and thiazide diuretics (hydrochlorothiazide, metazolone)
- certain beta blockers, like bisoprolol (Zebeta), nadolol (Corgard),metoprolol (Toprol, Lopressor), propanolol (Inderal), atenolol (Tenormin)
There are other blood pressure lowering medications that have also been shown to slightly lower your cholesterol levels, as well as modestly raise HDL cholesterol. These include:
- alpha-1 adrenergic blockers, such as prazosin (Minipress) or doxazosin (Cardura)
- alpha-2 agonists, such as methyldopa (Aldomet) or clonidine (Catapres)
Sources:
Third Report of the National Cholesterol Education Program
(NCEP) Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of
High Blood Cholesterol in Adults (PDF), July 2004, The National Institutes of Heath: The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Dipiro JT, Talbert RL. Pharmacotherapy: A Pathophysiological Approach, 6th ed 2005.
