Heart Medications Archive

Many people develop high blood pressure during their lifetime. These steps may delay your need to take medicines.

Hypertension, defined as a blood pressure reading of 140/90 mm Hg or above, is the primary risk factor for heart attack and stroke. Additionally, it sets the stage for other serious conditions, such as kidney failure, blood vessel damage, vision loss, and dementia.

Angioplasty can save lives, but it isn't always urgent. For some people, optimal medical therapy makes sense.

Each year, about 600,000 people in the United States undergo an angioplasty to widen a narrowed coronary artery, nearly always with a tiny wire mesh tube (stent) left inside the artery to keep it open. About two-thirds of these procedures are done in people experiencing a potentially life-threatening event—a heart attack or unstable angina, defined as severe, worsening chest pain during exertion or stress, or chest pain that happens at rest.

Despite a 2012 FDA warning that taking the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins may lead to memory loss or confusion, the evidence supporting that claim is very weak. The warning was apparently based on a number of case reports, which are considered less reliable than other studies, such as those that compare users of a drug to nonusers. The latest research, in Annals of Internal Medicine, included data from 27 studies and found no proof linking statin use to dementia or other problems associated with thinking and memory.

The study authors also looked at data collected by the FDA from people who reported side effects while taking statins or either of two other drugs, the blood pressure drug losartan (Cozaar) and the anti-clotting drug clopidogrel (Plavix). Reported rates of cognitive problems were similar for all three medications, yet the FDA has not issued similar warnings on losartan or clopidogrel (nor does it need to).

The science leans toward more aggressive use of statin drugs to prevent heart problems, but medication is not a "must do."

Doctors have a new roadmap for preventing heart attacks, strokes, and other harmful outcomes of cardiovascular disease. The guidelines, released by experts with the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology in November 2013, are the first update in more than a decade. "The guidelines provide a simplified approach to reducing cardiovascular risk," says Dr. Joanne Foody, an expert in preventive cardiology at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Guidelines for taking cholesterol-lowering drugs now target overall risk rather than cholesterol values.

Key treatments for both diseases—exercise and medications—demand extra attention and planning

Many people with heart disease—nearly 60%—also deal with painful joint damage due to arthritis. Coping with both conditions together poses some special challenges, especially with regard to exercise and medications.

Your recovery after a heart attack doesn't end when you leave the hospital. To protect your heart over the long term, follow these steps.

Having a heart attack is life-altering experience. More than likely, you'll spend the days and weeks after your discharge from the hospital flooded with new information on your heart health and medical care. You'll also be learning to cope with your identity as a heart attack survivor.

Should you be taking it? If so, when, how much, and what kind?

New guidelines may expand female candidates for these cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Statins are potent cholesterol-lowering drugs. However, they also have other effects that protect against heart attack and stroke. For that reason, new Guidelines released November 12 from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association have broadened recommendations for use of these medicines. Cholesterol levels no longer are the main factor. As a result, if you're not taking a statin drug now, you may be advised to start.

Each year, some 600,000 people in the United States get an artery-opening stent (a tiny mesh tube used to prop open a blood vessel), usually to restore blood flow to the heart. Afterward, most take aspirin and another anti-clotting medicine for up to a year.

Within the first two years of getting a stent, an estimated one in five people needs surgery for something other than a heart problem. That can be dangerous because anti-clotting medications raise bleeding risk, but stopping the drugs boosts the risk of a blood clot.