UCD STUDY: METH CAN LEAD TO FATAL FORM OF HEART DISEASE

Young people who use methamphetamine, an addictive, illegal stimulant
also known as meth, crank, crystal and speed, more than triple their
risk of cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle, according to a
study led by a researcher at UC Davis Health System.

Khung-Keong Yeo, a clinical fellow in the UC Davis Division of
Cardiovascular Medicine, led a team that reviewed the medical records
of 107 patients ages 45 and under who were discharged from a medical
center in Honolulu from January 2001 through June 2004 with a
diagnosis of cardiomyopathy or heart failure.

Yeo led the study while he was a medical resident at the University
of Hawaii. The study was published in the February issue of the
American Journal of Medicine.

According to the authors, the analysis is the first to show an
association between methamphetamine use and cardiomyopathy. Among the
patients studied, four of every 10 with cardiomyopathy used methamphetamine.

Cardiomyopathy is a disease of the muscular tissue of the heart known
as the myocardium. People with cardiomyopathy are at risk for heart
failure and arrhythmia, a condition in which the heartbeat is
abnormal, as well as sudden cardiac death.

Yeo and his research team compared the 107 patients diagnosed with
cardiomyopathy or heart failure with 114 age-matched patients
discharged without signs of heart problems. After adjusting for other
risk factors, including body weight and kidney failure, the
researchers found that methamphetamine users had a 3.7 times greater
risk of cardiomyopathy compared to the patients who did not use the
illegal drug.

In addition to facing to a higher risk of cardiomyopathy,
methamphetamine users were at an increased risk of developing a more
severe form of the disease, Yeo and his colleagues found. Their
review suggests that the hearts of cardiomyopathy patients who use
methamphetamine pump significantly less blood than do those of
cardiomyopathy patients who do not use methamphetamine.

Although the study was not designed to determine why methamphetamine
use increases cardiomyopathy risk, Yeo said that "there are many
speculated causes, including spasm of the arteries supplying the
heart, direct toxicity, elevated blood pressure and heart rate, and
atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries."

Other members of the research team were from the John A. Burns School
of Medicine at the University of Hawaii, the Washington Hospital
Center in Washington, D.C., and UC San Francisco.

The study was funded by the Queen Emma Research Fund and supported by
the Hawaii Residency Programs Tobacco Reduction Project.