Heart Drugs Could Put Patients At Risk

NEW YORK, Ny. (WUSA) -- Heart disease is the number one killer in America. Now, a new study warns that a combination of drugs given to thousands of heart attack survivors may actually do more harm than good.

Dr. Mun Hong of St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital says, "The patients receiving both may have more heart attack in the future."

Nearly a million people in the United States survive heart attacks every year, and in many cases, doctors prescribe them the blood thinner Plavix.

Dr Hong says, "To prevent blood clot formation in the arteries supplying blood to the heart."

Experts say that medicine can cause bleeding in the stomach, so physicians are prescribing drugs to prevent that. The most common are Prilosec and Nexium, but a new study found patients taking both drugs had a 25% higher risk of having another heart attack or dying.

The study followed more than 8,000 veterans who had heart attacks. Nearly two thirds of them were prescribed that drug combination. Now in light of this new information, many doctors say the treatment is likely to change.

Dr. Hong says, "One of the outcomes of this study may be that we prescribe proton pump inhibitors only in patients who have documented ulcers or bleeding in the stomach."

Doctors say that more research is needed into how these two drugs interact because the study only investigated older men, many of whom already had a higher risk of heart attack.

What doctors think may be happening is that the Nexium or Prilosec interfere with the power of the blood thinner, making clots more likely to form. If you are a heart patient on both of these medication, you should talk to your doctor right away.