Millions of people in the world are taking a drug with side effects every day without needing it, as reveals an investigation carried out by more than a hundred hospitals in Spain and Italy, without participation of the pharmaceutical industry. A clinical trial, with 8,500 volunteers, has shown that beta blockers – some medications that have been prescribed for life after a heart attack – do not provide any benefit to most of these patients and can even be harmful to women. One of the work leaders, the cardiologist, estimates that in Spain there may be 1.2 million people taking beta blockers every day in a totally useless way, risking its side effects, such as fatigue, slow heart rate and the decrease in sexual desire. The scientist, from the National Cardiovascular Research Center (CNIC), summarizes its results graphically: “It is a bomb.”
Ibáñez, born in Madrid 50 years ago, presumes an uncommon characteristic in the avant -garde of medicine: “I have no relationship with the industry, I have absolutely zero.” He does not even accept invitations to medical meals or congresses, typical in the sector. That lack of conflicts of interest made the European Cardiology Society select it in 2014 to prepare its myocardial infarction treatment guide, a problem that every year affects two million people in the continent, 70,000 of them in Spain. Ibáñez recalls that he ran into a total absence of current evidence of the effectiveness of the beta blockers in cases of uncomplicated infarction, despite the fact that millions of people were massively prescribed by system. He commented with the director of the CNIC, the cardiologist, who had the same feeling, and decided to initiate an ambitious clinical trial, regardless of the industry, to find out whether the drugs worked or not. Its results have been presented this Saturday at the Congress of the European Society of Cardiology, in Madrid.
More than a hundred hospitals went to the call, with 8,500 patients who had suffered a heart attack, with different degrees of gravity. The heart attack occurs when blood flow with oxygen is obstruct and does not reach a part of the heart muscle, whose cells begin to die. Ibáñez emphasizes that most people, 70%survive the heart attack with the preserved heart pumping capacity. In 20% of cases, the contractile activity is moderately reduced. And in the remaining 10% the dysfunction is evident. The clinical trial included patients from the first two groups. In that 20% with intermediate affectation, a possible positive effect was appreciated. But in the majority group with uncomplicated infarction the beta blockers were useless. Fuster, who also presides over New York, warns that there are “millions of people” worldwide taking these drugs without need. “In the last 10 years I have not used beta blockers in patients with uncomplicated infarction, but I have had many debates with other colleagues, there was controversy. Now we have exact data,” proclaims the cardiologist.
The rehearsal results are especially surprising and worrisome in women. Patients who took beta blockers after an uncomplicated infarction had 45% more risk of dying, having another heart attack or entering a hospital due to heart failure than those who did not take drugs. It is a high relative risk, but the absolute risk remains low. In the group of women without beta blockers, about two cases of death, reinfaro or hospital admission for every 100 patients a year were recorded, compared to the approximately three in the subset treated with these medications. The essay participated in the essay, a figure that Ibáñez considers enough to draw conclusions. “These results must be taken seriously,” he warns. For every 100 women treated there is an outcome of death, reinfaro or hospitalization attributable to beta blockers every year.
The essay, has also served to confirm that women suffering from a heart attack have “a profile of greater cardiovascular risk” than men in their same situation. Patients, in general, have a greater age and more simultaneous health problems, such as hypertension, diabetes and cholesterol. Your forecast is also worse. The mortality of women during the four years of average follow -up was 4.3%, compared to 3.6% in men. The results are published this Saturday in three important medical magazines :, and the.
Beta -locking are drugs of the 1970s already free of patents, such as the historically linked to the Astrazeneca pharmaceutical, and the, developed by. They are very cheap medications (four euros a box of 40 tablets) and insurance, and are used to treat hypertension, heart failure, chest angina, arrhythmias and other cardiovascular problems. The new essay is limited to discarding its usefulness in cases of uncomplicated infarction. Ibáñez clarifies that the beta blockers were useful at first, but they ceased to be around 2005, when the implementation practice was generalized stents Coronarios, a kind of mesh tube that prevents the obstruction of the arteries after a heart attack.
The hundred hospitals in Spain and Italy has participated altruistically, without any financial compensation, under the coordination of the CNIC and that of Milan. Your conclusions will serve to change international infarction management guides. Eliminating beta blockers will also allow to prescribe other drugs that were incompatible and can have benefits against hypertension. “It’s going to be brutal, millions of people from this Saturday will receive totally different treatment,” says Ibáñez.
