Heart attack patients prescribed a killer drug

If you’ve had a heart attack, you’re likely to be prescribed a beta blocker—but the drugs can be a killer, especially if you’re a woman.

Women prescribed beta blockers are more likely to die, suffer a second heart attack or need hospital care than those who didn’t take the drug.

The drugs aren’t as dangerous for men, but they don’t offer any protective benefit either, say researchers from the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, who are part of the Reboot Trial, which is investigating the use of beta blockers.

The trial is truly independent and doesn’t get any funding from drug companies.

The drugs have been routinely prescribed after a heart attack for around 40 years, but it’s time to rethink the procedure, especially as better responses are available today, they say.

The researchers enrolled 8,505 heart attack patients from 109 hospitals in Spain and Italy, some of whom were randomly assigned to receive beta blockers, and their progress was monitored for four years.

The result was striking: Beta blockers did not significantly reduce death, or lower the chances of a second heart attack, or prevent hospitalization for heart failure in patients whose hearts had not been damaged by the initial attack.

But for women, the drugs could even be dangerous. Their risk of dying rose by 2.7 percent, provided their heart was functioning normally after an attack.  The risk disappeared in women whose heart function had been mildly affected.

Around 80 percent of heart attack patients are routinely handed a beta blocker such as Metoprolol, which blocks the effects of stress hormones like adrenaline and slows the heart rate and lowers blood pressure.

But as there are better therapies available after a heart attack, their day in the sun may soon be coming to an end, the researchers conclude.

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