Unimax combines two medicines that have different ways of working and leads to a greater lowering of blood pressure in more people than with either medicine used alone.

• Felodipine (see Plendil) belongs to a group of medicines called calcium-channel blockers:
  
  
  • Felodipine prevents calcium from entering and being released within the muscle cells lining the small arteries of the heart and other blood vessels of the body.
    
    
  • Calcium is necessary for muscle cells to contract and for blood vessels to become narrowed. Blocking calcium transport causes the muscles to relax and the arteries to expand and widen (dilate).
    
    
  • This is how felodipine reduces blood pressure, by dilating blood vessels.
    
    
  • Felodipine has little or no effect on the muscles of veins or the heart.
    
• Ramipril (see Ramace) is an ACE (angiotensin-converting enzyme) inhibitor which blocks the production of a hormone (chemical signal carried in the blood) called angiotensin II:
  
  
  • Angiotensin II is a chemical that is made by the body, which narrows blood vessels and thereby raises (elevates) blood pressure.
    
    
  • ACE is an enzyme (a chemical that controls other chemical reactions) in the body that is important for the formation of angiotensin II.
    
    
  • When ACE is blocked by ramipril, angiotensin cannot be converted into its active form, angiotensin II.
    
    
  • Blood pressure falls due to relaxation and widening of the arteries.