COCAINE USERS FACE A HUGE RISK OF HEART ATTACKS, STUDY PROVES

DALLAS -- Cocaine users are 24 times more likely to have a heart attack
during the first hour after taking the drug, according to a Harvard study.

"It's rare to see such a strong association" between cocaine use and heart
attack, said Dr. Murray Mittleman, an internist at Harvard Medical School's
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

"It's larger than all of the other triggers that bring on the onset of
heart attack."

The study was led by Mittleman and published in yesterday's issue of
Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Association.

Scientists have long known that cocaine can raise the risk of a heart attack.

Mittleman said this is the first controlled study to actually quantify the
risk.

The research was based on interviews at 64 hospitals across the United
States with 3,946 patients, ages 20 to 92, who had suffered heart attacks.

Researchers conducted the interviews between 1989 and 1996. All patients
were guaranteed anonymity.

Thirty-eight reported cocaine use in the year prior to their attack, with
nine reporting use of the drug within an hour before their heart attack.

Mittleman said the risk of a heart attack appeared to drop significantly
after the first hour of cocaine use.

The cocaine users who had a heart attack were 44 years old on average. By
comparison, the average age for all heart attack patients in the United
States is 61.

Research over the past decade has shown adrenalinelike drugs such as
cocaine can trigger health problems such as increased heart rate, high
blood pressure and stroke.

Dr. Steven Manoukain, a cardiologist at Emory University School of Medicine
in Atlanta, said the 24-times-higher risk as calculated by the Harvard
researchers was higher than he thought it would be.

More than 30 million Americans are believed to have tried cocaine, with an
estimated 5 million becoming regular users.

"From a public health perspective, that's a potentially very large burden
of disease," Mittleman said.