Costs for beta-blockers - used by tens of millions of Americans to treat high blood pressure and other heart ailments - vary from around $10 to more than $250 a month.

This report gives you information that could save you $1,000 to $2,000 a year if you are currently taking a brand name beta-blocker instead of a generic, or hundreds of dollars a year if you are taking a higher cost generic.

Beta-blockers are effective, life-saving medicines with over 25 years of widespread and generally safe use. This report compares the effectiveness, safety, and cost of 14 beta blockers in the treatment of high blood pressure, angina, heart attack and heart failure.   Taking effectiveness, safety and cost into account, we have selected the following seven beta-blockers, at all appropriate doses, as Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs:

• For high blood pressure— metoprolol tartrate, nadolol, and propranolol.
• For angina — atenolol, metoprolol tartrate, nadolol, and propranolol.
• After a heart attack— atenolol, metoprolol tartrate, and propranolol .
• For mild heart failure — bisoprolol and metoprolol succinate (Toprol XL).
• For severe heart failure — carvedilol (Coreg) .

All but two of these medicines are low-cost generics. All have been proven to be either just as effective or superior to other beta-blockers.

All beta-blockers are effective against high blood pressure. But because people with high blood pressure may respond to the various beta-blockers differently, you may have to try more than one before finding the drug that works best for you. Beta-blockers are considered "second step" treatment — after diuretics (widely known as "water pills) - if you only have high blood pressure and no other heart condition. They are best used in combination with other blood pressure medicines in the treatment of high blood pressure.

In contrast, if you have angina, heart failure or if you have had a heart attack — with or without high blood pressure — our Best Buy beta-blockers may well be a first step treatment for you.