October 15, 2001 DALLAS (AP) - Smokers who take certain antidepressants such as Prozac and Zoloft run a dramatically lower risk of a first heart attack, a U.S. study suggests.
The study found that smokers who took selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, reduced their chances of a heart attack by 65 percent compared with smokers who didn't.
Dr. Stephen Kimmel, an assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania, said one possible explanation is that the drugs act like a blood thinner, reducing the risk of clots that cause heart attacks. But he said more research is needed.
He said another possibility is that the drugs reduced the risk of a heart attack indirectly, by relieving depression. Depression is known to be a risk factor for heart attacks.
It also remains to be seen how the drugs affect nonsmokers. The findings were published in Tuesday's issue of the journal Circulation.
Kimmel's study, originally intended to examine whether nicotine patches prevented heart attacks, looked at 3,643 smokers ages 30 to 65 during a two-year period in eight counties near Philadelphia. The SSRIs studied included Prozac, Zoloft, Luvox and Paxil.
Previous studies have indicated that other types of antidepressants can cause abnormal heart rhythms in patients with heart problems.
Dr. Daniel E. Ford of Baltimore's Johns Hopkins School of Medicine said a major limitation of the study was that it did not gauge the level of depression for each person in the study. He conducted an earlier study that showed clinically depressed men were twice as likely as other men to suffer heart attacks or develop other heart illnesses.
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
