Content provided by the Faculty of the Harvard Medical School

Heart Beat: ACE giveaway could save lives, money

Heart Beat

ACE giveaway could save lives, money

If the best things in life are free, then doctors should be giving away ACE inhibitors to people with diabetes. University of Michigan researchers estimate that making these drugs available at no cost would saves lives, not to mention billions of dollars in health care costs.

Most people with diabetes have high blood pressure. Diabetes also dangerously boosts the chances of having a heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, or other manifestation of cholesterol-clogged arteries (atherosclerosis).

ACE inhibitors lower blood pressure. For people with diabetes, they also reduce the risk of developing, or dying from, cardiovascular or kidney disease. But many diabetics don't take an ACE inhibitor, often because they can't afford to pay for yet another medication.

The Michigan researchers used a computer model to determine what it would cost Medicare to cover the entire expense of providing ACE inhibitors to Medicare recipients with diabetes. Such a program, they reasoned, would increase use of these drugs. The model showed that it would reduce deaths from, and hospitalizations for, heart attack, stroke, and kidney failure. On the financial side, giving away ACE inhibitors to people with diabetes would save $900 or more per person even after accounting for the cost of the drugs.

It's hard to say whether Medicare will heed these findings, which were published in the July 19, 2005, Annals of Internal Medicine. But it offers further evidence of the value of ACE inhibitors for people with diabetes.

Last updated:	September 05, 2008