New research says common heart attack medications do not work and may increase the risk of death in some women.
According to groundbreaking new research, a class of drugs called beta blockers (used as first-line treatment after a heart attack for decades) does not benefit the vast majority of patients and may result in higher hospitalization and death risks in some women, but in men, it may result in higher hospitalization and death risks.
“These findings will reshape all international clinical guidelines regarding the use of beta blockers in men and women and should trigger long-standing, gender-specific treatments for cardiovascular disease,transparent Senior study authors say Dr. Valentin Fuster, president of Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital in New York City, director of the Madrid National Cardiovascular Investigation Center.
Women who received beta blockers who had little or no heart attack after a heart attack were more likely to have heart disease or heart failure than women who were not given a drug, according to a study published in the European Journal of Cardiology, which is also planned to be at the European Cardiology Conference in Madrid on Saturday.
“This is especially true for women receiving high doses of beta blockers,” said Dr. Borjaibáñezebr, Scientific Director, Madrid’s National Center for Cardiovascular Investigation.
“The total number of women in clinical trials is the largest of tests for beta-blockers (heart attacks) after myocardial infarction, so this is an important finding,” said Ibáñez, a cardiologist at the Jiménez Dínez Dionaz Dionaz Díaz Foundation Hospital in Madrid..
However, these findings are only applicable to women over the age of 50 who have left ventricular ejaculation fraction%, This is considered a normal function, the study said. Ejaculation fraction is a method of measuring the hot blood pumping throughout the body on the left side of the heart. For those who score less than 40% of their heart attack, beta blockers continue to be the standard of care due to their ability to calm arrhythmia, which may trigger a second event.
The drug still has unpleasant side effects, said Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and health for Denver National Jewish Health.
“These drugs can cause low blood pressure, low heart rate, erectile dysfunction, fatigue and mood swings,” Freeman said. “Whenever we use these drugs, we always have to balance risks with benefits.”
Why are women more susceptible to beta blockers than men?
“It’s not surprising,” Freeman said. “Gender has a lot to do with how people respond to drugs. In many cases, women have smaller hearts. They are more sensitive to blood pressure medications. Some of them may be about size, and some may be related to other factors that we haven’t fully understood yet.”
In fact, since early research on the heart focused on men, it took a lot of time to discover that heart disease manifested differently in women. Men usually have plaque buildup in their main arteries and experience more traditional signs of heart attacks, such as chest pain. Women are more likely to have plaques in smaller blood vessels in the heart and may experience more abnormal heart attack symptoms such as back pain, indigestion and shortness of breath.
Experts say beta blockers have been the first-line treatment for anyone who has had a heart attack for 40 years. – Gate Image
Advances in treatment reduce the need for beta blockers
The analysis of women is part of a larger clinical trial called Restart—treatment of beta-blockers after myocardial infarction without reducing ejection fraction, which is nearly four years for men and women who have been treated for heart disease in 109 hospitals in Spain and Italy.
The results of the study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and were presented at the European Society of Cardiology.
None of the patients in the trial had a left ventricular ejaculation fraction below 40%, which was a sign of potential heart failure.
“Although this is about 40 years of standard of care, we found that men or women who use beta blockers after a heart attack are not any benefit,” former editor-in-chief of the American College of Cardiology magazine, president of the American Heart Association and former president of the World Health Federation.
This may be due to advances in drug treatment, such as the use of stents and blood thinners immediately upon arrival at the hospital. Ibanis said that in fact, most men and women who have heart attacks today have more than 50% ejaculation scores.
“However, at present, about 80% of patients in the U.S., Europe and Asia are treated with beta blockers, as medical guidelines still recommend them,” he said. “While we often test new drugs, there are much less stringent questions about the need to continue to be the old treatment.”
While the study did not find that beta blockers are needed to make more than 50% of people with left ventricular ejaculation scores above 50% after a heart attack, a separate meta-analysis of 1,885 patients published on the Lancet on Saturday did find 40% and 50% of the scores that could cause serious damage to the heart.
“This subgroup does benefit from routine use of beta blockers,” said Ibanis, co-author of this article. “We found a 25% reduction in primary endpoints, which is a combination of new heart attacks, heart failure and all-cause death.”
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