131 - Come One, Come All: Know Everything about Beta-blockers!

HelixTalk - Rosalind Franklin University's College of Pharmacy Podcast

Sean P. Kane, PharmD, BCPS

Health & Fitness, Medications, Rosalindfranklin, Rfums, Pharmacy, Pharmd, Pharmacist, Medicine, Drugs

5 • 644 Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2021

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, we will review the beta-blocker drug class. We discuss their pharmacology, pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic parameters, evidence-based use, efficacy, and safety considerations.

Key Concepts

Various beta-blockers are divided into four main subtypes: non-selective, B1-selective, beta-blockers with alpha 1 antagonistic activity, and beta-blockers with intrinsic sympathomimetic activity (ISA). These subtypes govern their place in therapy, efficacy, and adverse effects.
With regards to dosing, “start low and go slow”. The antihypertensive effect is dose-specific, but heart failure therapy requires a GDMT dosing approach to initiate and reach a certain target dose. Do not initiate as a new agent in acutely decompensated heart failure and definitely do not abruptly stop the therapy -- a taper over 1-2 weeks is required.
Beta blockers are not first-line antihypertensives; however, they should be used in patients with compelling indications, such as systolic heart failure and post-MI. Other uses include angina, atrial fibrillation, migraine, tremors, and more.
Beta blockers are associated with a number of adverse effects including bradycardia, bronchoconstriction, weight gain, dyslipidemia, hyperkalemia, and masking of hypoglycemia. More severe adverse effects include heart block, exacerbation of heart failure, and morbidity/mortality from acute withdrawal.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Helix Talk, an educational podcast for healthcare students and providers covering real-life clinical pearls, professional pharmacy topics, and drug therapy discussions.
0:11.0	This podcast is provided by pharmacists and faculty members at Rosal Franklin University College of Pharmacy.
0:17.0	This podcast contains general information for educational purposes only. This is not professional
0:22.4	advice and should not be used in lieu of obtaining advice from a qualified health care provider.
0:27.2	And now on to the show.
0:31.1	Welcome to HelixTac episode 131. I'm your co-host, Dr. Kane. And I'm Dr. Patel. And before we announced the exciting
0:40.0	title of our episode, I do want to remind our awesome audience that there is a quick 15-second
0:47.7	survey on vaccine hesitancy. It's right on our Helix Talk website. And we want to know more about what you have encountered as far as hesitancies consider from COVID-19 vaccine, from friends, family, colleagues, patients, et cetera.
1:04.0	We want to record more of an informed episode coming from the audience.
1:09.4	So you're going to be on the front line contributing towards the
1:12.2	content of this episode. And we really appreciate your time. So if you can finish that survey
1:16.1	for us, they'll be greatly appreciated. And while you're there, we might as well mention that we
1:20.6	do have a mailing list now. So if you want an email whenever new episodes come out, you can go to
1:25.1	helixotoc.com, click on the mailing list, subscribe,
1:27.9	and then you'll get a nice email every three weeks on Tuesdays whenever we release those new
1:32.2	episodes. So that being said, drum rolls for our Helix Talk episode 131 title,
1:38.4	come one, come all, know everything about beta blockers. Dr. Kane, I believe this was one of our listeners suggested
1:45.1	topic to dive more into a different type of beta blockers available. So we are going to just do
1:49.9	that, learn about the basic pharmacology, what are some of the PKPD differences, what's
1:56.1	their evidence-based use, efficacy, and safety parameters. Exactly. So Dr. Patel, I think it sounds logical that we should start where probably most pharmacy
2:05.2	students start, which is the anatomy and physiology of the adrenergic system, specifically
2:10.4	those alpha and beta receptors.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Sean P. Kane, PharmD, BCPS, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Sean P. Kane, PharmD, BCPS and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.