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June 4, 2008Study finds link between amphetamine abuse and heart attacks in young adults |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Young adults who abuse amphetamines may be at greater risk of suffering a heart attack, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found. In the study, available online in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, researchers examined data from more than 3 million people between 18 and 44 years old hospitalized from 2000 through 2003 in Texas and found a relationship between a diagnosis of amphetamine abuse and heart attack. Individual case reports have suggested a link between heart attack and amphetamine abuse, but this is believed to be the first epidemiological study of a large group of people on the issue, said Dr. Arthur Westover, assistant professor of psychiatry at UT Southwestern and the study's lead author. "Most people aren't surprised that methamphetamines and amphetamines are bad for your health," Dr. Westover said. "But we are concerned because heart attacks in the young are rare and can be very debilitating or deadly." Dr. Haley holds the U.S. Armed Forces Veterans Distinguished Chair for Medical Research, Honoring America's Gulf War Veterans. Doctors recognizing an amphetamine-caused heart attack might choose not to administer a beta-blocker medication, a common treatment for heart attack, because it could interact with methamphetamine to make the heart attack worse. "We're talking about a state that is near the middle of prevalence of methamphetamine use in the United States, so it's possible that the number of heart attacks in young adults in other states with a much higher prevalence of amphetamine abuse may be higher as well," said Dr. Westover, who is a National Institutes of Health Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Scholar at UT Southwestern.
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