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news.New research from the Stanford University School of Medicine suggests that taking beta-blockers or statins lessens heart attack risk, even for patients with undiagnosed heart disease.
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Statins are typically prescribed to reduce cholesterol, one of the warning signs for heart disease. Beta-blockers are given to patients with high blood pressure, another warning sign for heart disease. The research suggests that use of these drugs could be effective even in patients that do not have these symptoms.
According to the researchers, these preventive drugs can steer patients away from having a heart attack toward the less serious symptom of mild chest pain that occurs only with exercise (angina) even if they don’t stop the build-up of cholesterol in a patient’s arteries.
Researchers evaluated 1,400 patients. Of those patients, only 20% who had suffered a heart attack were on a statin, compared with 40% of patients who presented with exertional angina.
The patients who suffered a heart attack “out of the blue” were much less likely than those who had only angina to be taking statins and beta-blockers. Patients on statins reduced the risk of heart attack by more than half, the researchers said.
“We looked at all the medications used to prevent heart disease,” said Dr Alan Go, of Kaiser Permanente of Northern California’s division of research and lead author of the study. “But only statins and beta-blockers lowered the risk of heart attack.”
The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, was conducted in collaboration with investigators at Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland and the University of California-San Francisco.