Blood pressure meds may raise elderly fall risk

By Kathryn Doyle NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Older people who take blood pressure medications had more serious injuries from falls than those not taking medications, according to a new study. The added risk with blood pressure meds for falls that cause serious injury has been suggested before, but older people shouldn’t stop taking their medications based just on these results, the authors say. “It is important to remember that no single study, and particularly an observational study such as ours, can give a definitive answer,” said Dr. Mary E. Tinetti, who led the research. “We cannot say definitively that antihypertensive medications led to serious fall injuries such as hip fractures,” said Tinetti, a geriatrics researcher at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.