According to a recent statement released by the American Heart Association (AHA), the use of methamphetamines was associated with around 1 in 6 heart attacks among adults receiving treatment at a hospital in California. The statement followed the publication of a new study in the Journal of the American Heart Association, which examined data collected from 1,309 patients aged 18 to 65 years with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) who were treated in Northern California over the period spanning between 2012 and 2022. Of these patients, 194 (about 14.8%, or 1 in 6 patients) reported methamphetamine use.
Moreover, most ACS patients who reported using methamphetamines were men, with a median age of 52 years, compared to a median age of 57 years for patients who did not use methamphetamines. ACS includes conditions where blood flow to the heart is reduced, such as heart attacks and chest pain. It was also found that 24.2% of patients in the group of patients with ACS who reported using methamphetamines had nonobstructive coronary diseases, compared to 10.6% among patients in the ACS group who did not use them. Importantly, patients who used methamphetamines were readmitted to the hospital for repeat heart attacks more often and had a higher risk of death from any cause (22.2%) compared to patients who did not use methamphetamines (14.4%).
Finally, patients in the ACS group who used methamphetamines were also significantly more likely to be readmitted for subsequent ACS events. The study results also revealed that patients who used methamphetamines were less likely to have common risk factors for heart disease, such as high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes, but were more likely to smoke cigarettes, use alcohol and experience homelessness than the patients who did not use methamphetamines.
“Even though meth users were generally younger and didn’t have typical cardiovascular disease-related conditions like high cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes or obesity, they were twice as likely to die after a heart attack when compared to non-users,” said study author Dr. Susan Zhao, staff cardiologist and medical director of the Coronary Care Unit at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, California, and professor at Stanford School of Medicine. “People who use meth need to be aware of the serious health risks associated with it, and medical professionals should closely monitor heart attacks in patients who appear healthy and lack typical risk factors, such as Type 2 diabetes or high cholesterol.”
The statement released by AHA also noted that the study may not fully reflect the impact of meth on heart attacks since not all patients who suffer such attacks are screened for drug use.
