two medicines in one pill for blood pressure? Back to the 1980s

guess what? A single pill with two drugs treats blood pressure better than two pills.

SciDaily report:

The guidelines recommend starting most patients on two blood pressure lowering drugs, not one. The previous recommendation was for step-wise treatment, which meant starting with one drug then adding a second and third if needed. This suffered from "physician inertia," in which doctors were reluctant to change the initial strategy despite its lack of success. At least 80% of patients should have been upgraded to two drugs, yet most remained on one drug. 

well, it's not "lack of success" but that there is partial success, and we figure that was good enough.

so now they think putting two pills together might work better... and this is related to why docs figure one pill was good enough: Because patients object to taking a lot of pills, or forget to take them correctly:

 It is now recognised that a major reason for poor rates of blood pressure control is that patients do not take their pills. Non-adherence increases with the number of pills, so administering the two drugs (or three if needed) in a single tablet "could transform blood pressure control rates," state the guidelines.

the problem? We used to have these combinations back in the 1980s, but some "expert" at the FDA outlawed them, saying that it was more scientific to give separate pills so we could individualize the doses. But we docs knew about the patients not taking pills, but never mind: The experts had spoken.