Hospitalised Heart Patients Safer with Anti-depressants

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland have found that patients hospitalised with a heart attack or severe angina benefit from taking a particular type of anti-depressant.

According to the research findings, patients with “acute coronary syndrome” are less likely to have certain subsequent heart-related events if they are taking a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor or SSRI. Primarily used for relieving depression, SSRI drugs also stop platelets from clumping together.

Led by Dr. Roy C. Ziegelstein, the research team based their study on the fact that SSRIs are often used for treating anxiety and depression in coronary heart disease patients. They wanted to ascertain if this has an effect on the patients’ outcome.

For their study, the researchers studied 1254 patients with acute coronary syndromes for in-hospital events. All the patients were being administered standard anti-platelet medications and blood thinners. Of these, 158 patients were on an SSRI while another 158 similar patients were not on any SSRIs.

The researchers found that the risk of patients on SSRI suffering a recurrence of angina or developing heart failure was significantly lower than patients not taking an SSRI. The researchers suspect that this characteristic might be on account of the ability of SSRI drugs to stop platelets from clumping together.

It was observed that increased inhibition of platelets also increased the risk of bleeding in the SSRI patient group; however there was no major difference in the likelihood of major bleeding that could cause serious complications between the two groups.

“Although additional studies are needed to verify the findings of our study,” lead investigator Dr. Ziegelstein said, “the platelet effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors may reduce the likelihood of certain complications at the expense of increased bleeding in patients with heart disease.”

Reporting their findings in the American Journal of Medicine, the researchers stressed on the need for larger studies and concluded that, “doctors should be aware of this association when treating patients with acute coronary syndrome.”

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