Taking Heart Drugs Lowers Death Risk
Posted on: Tuesday, 9 January 2007, 15:00 CST
Patients who don't take their heart medicine as prescribed up their death risk by 25 percent compared with patients who do, a U.S. study says.
Researchers said Tuesday their study shows that the pharmacological effects of medicine trumps the natural and genetic ability of individuals to maintain their health after a heart attack.
Reporting in Wednesday's edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Jeppe Rasmussen, a researcher at the University of Toronto, scrutinized how well heart-attack patients adhered to their prescribed blood pressure and cholesterol medicine after being discharged from the hospital.
Patients who were the best at adhering to their doctors' orders had a 16-percent risk of dying during the four-year period under study, compared with 24 percent of patients who were least adherent in taking their medication.
After a careful analysis that considered several biological variables, Rasmussen was able to calculate that the drugs themselves had an impact on survival, and that failure to take the drugs results in a 25-percent greater risk of death.
Our study has important clinical and policy implications, Rasmussen said. The beneficial biological effects associated with higher drug adherence on survival underscore the need to optimize adherent patient behavior patterns.
Source: United Press International
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