What to Know About Beta Blockers

The common medication has been around since the 1960s but has evolved.

A Drug to Cure Fear

But maybe that modern world can help. I see nothing wrong with doing all we can to rid ourselves of pathological anxiety, including using drugs to alter our painful emotional memories.

Banana a Natural Beta Blocker for Anxiety

Bananas have similar affects to a (pharmaceutical) drug class called beta-adrenergic blockers. Beta blockers are prescribed to treat anxiety, reduce blood pressure, or heart conditions. Beta blockers prevent adrenaline from binding to beta receptors which results in lower blood pressure and pulse rate, which normally skyrocket when experiencing anxiety and under stress. Bananas have been shown to result similarly, acting as an all natural beta blocker in your body.

Beta Blockers in the Management of Hypertension - Where do we stand

Beta-blockers still has important role to play in the modern approach to antihypertensive treatment now often based on the drug combinations.

Beta blockers may be less helpful than thought

The cheap and popular heart drugs known as beta-blockers may be overused in many patients, exposing them needlessly to bothersome side effects, a new study suggests.

Beta Blockers Were a Miracle Cure for My Stage Fright

Then they took over my life.

Beta-blockers for hypertension: Are they going out of style?

Although beta-blockers lower blood pressure in most patients, the outcomes of clinical hypertension trials of these drugs have been disappointing, and the value of beta-blockers in treating hypertensive patients who do not have compelling indications for them has been questioned. Until these drugs are proved beneficial, they should be used as antihypertensive therapy only in patients with compelling cardiac indications for them or as add-on agents in those with uncontrolled or resistant hypertension.

Better music by prescription

Amid growing expectations and pressures, some musicians are turning to medications to calm their nerves, but in the School of Music, the topic remains taboo.

Can This Drug Cure Performance Anxiety?

Beta-blockers, used primarily as a treatment for heart disease, may help calm the nerves of anxious orators.

Drugs for public speaking fear: Should I take Beta Blockers?

You see, nerves are okay. They’re manageable. They’re a useful signal. If you rely on medication you are saying your nerves are out of your control, treating your body as the enemy and the signals as a demon to be exorcized.

Ending the Nightmares: How Drug Treatment Could Finally Stop PTSD

Propranolol, a beta-blocker that cuts heart rate, could silence the disastrous events on repeat in the minds of millions of people with PTSD.

Guideline Critics Shift Attacks From Beta Blockers To Statins

With the release today of updated European and US guidelines the ongoing controversy regarding beta-blockers appears to be resolved. But that doesn't necessarily mean there will be an outbreak of guideline peace and harmony. The critics who helped ignite the controversy over beta blockers now say new statin recommendations contained in the guidelines are based on deeply flawed evidence.

In Defense of the Beta Blocker

Beta blockers have been around since the 1960s, but it took a while before anyone noticed how useful they were for performance anxiety. Probably the first performers to start using them widely were musicians, especially classical musicians, whose hands can get clammy or tremble during a concert performance.

Overcoming a Lifetime of Stage Fright

Beta blockers work by blocking the effect of adrenaline and slowing the heart rate; they’re one of the most prescribed medications in the United States. Despite a lack of recent studies, various surveys over the last three decades have estimated that 20 percent to 30 percent of symphony musicians regularly use beta blockers to quell their nerves.

What are beta-blockers – and can they treat your anxiety?

Your grandpa takes beta-blockers for his heart, but could they help treat anxiety?

Beta Blocker Trick: Easy as A-Z

The beta blocker drug list is extensive making it challenging to remember the mechanism of action and pharmacology of each one. Some beta blocker medications are selective for beta 1 receptors, while other beta blockers are non-selective for beta 1 and beta 2 receptors. A third category also antagonizes both alpha and beta receptors.

Beta blockers: Cardiac jacks of all trades

The release of the first beta blocker in the early 1960s revolutionized the treatment of chest pain caused by exertion or stress (angina). Over the following four decades, these old dogs have learned many new tricks, from protecting the heart after a heart attack to controlling heart failure.

Beta-Blockers for Cocaine and other Stimulant Toxicity

So what about mixed beta/alpha blockers like labetalol and carvedilol? Based on the evidence examined in both systematic reviews, there were no cases of bona-fide or even putative “unopposed alpha-stimulation” events. Labetalol was effective at treating concomitant tachycardia and hypertension.

Depression and suicide risk are side effects of more than 200 common drugs

More than a third of American adults use medications that list depression as a risk, and a quarter use drugs that increase the risk of suicide.