Dr. Michael E. Doyle: Conventional and Alternative Medicines.

If You Take This To Stop Smoking, You May Have a Heart Attack

Posted in Michael E. Doyle, MD by Dr. Michael E. Doyle on July 6, 2011

If you take this to stop smoking, you may have a heart attack.

The newest drug to help people stop smoking seems to cause heart attaks in a small but significant number of users:

Our meta-analysis raises safety concerns about the potential for an increased risk of serious adverse cardiovascular events associated with the use of varenicline among tobacco users. Despite the limitations of our analysis, our findings have potential regulatory and clinical implications. Drugs that receive priority review have limited safety data at the time of approval.34 The initial safety signal regarding ardiovascular events in people using varenicline was not followed up by an adequately powered safety trial. Until such trials are conducted, clinicians should carefully balance the risk of serious cardiovascular events and serious neuropsychiatric adverse events associated with varenicline use against the known benefits of the drug on smoking cessation.

Singh S et al “Risk of serious adverse cardiovascular events associated with varenicline: A systematic review and meta-analysis” CMAJ 2011; DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.110804.

This is in addition to the major mood disorders that it (Chantix) sometimes causes.

Once again, we see that many pharmaceuticals have surprising risks that are not noticed by the FDA until long after they are released. Proceed with caution…

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