Common Drugs Cause 1200 Heart Attacks

Millions of patients who take drugs prescribed for ailments from sore throats to indigestion may risk a heart attack, researchers have warned.

The drugs, including antibiotics, indigestion remedies and treatments for mental illness, could cause up to 1,200 heart attack deaths a year in the UK and 15,000 in Europe and the US, the researchers said.

A study in the Netherlands has found the drugs interfered with the electrical activity controlling the heartbeat, increasing the risk of sudden death due to cardiac arrest by three times. Of the seven drugs studied, two are the antibiotics erythromycin and clarithromycin. Others on the risk-list are cisapride and domperidone, which are used to treat gastro-intestinal conditions, and the anti-psychotic medications chlorpromazine, haloperidol and pimozide.

All the drugs were known to prolong the heart's QTc interval - a measurement of the electrical activity linked to the contraction of heart muscle cells. Drugs that increase the QTc interval can cause life-threatening disruptions of heart rhythms. But the new study is thought to be the first to investigate links with sudden death.

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