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When you've reached a certain age and you have to rely on these types of meds, findings like these cause some concern.

These findings were made public yesterday. (3/3/09) As stated the findings are not conclusive, but still adds room for concern.

Study: Drug Combination Could Harm Heart Health
Reporting
Dr. Maria Simbra PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―




Lots of people take clopidogrel, brand name Plavix, after a heart attack, chest pain, or cardiac stents.

It's kind of like a super aspirin and works against clotting cells called platelets. It keeps the blood thinner, so it can flow more easily through heart vessels.

"There's quite a bit of benefit from taking both aspirin and Plavix for a period of time, up to one year," says Dr. Tony Farah, a cardiologist at Allegheny General Hospital.

With these drugs, there's a small risk of bleeding outweighed by the protection they give to the heart.

Many people also take medications to protect the stomach, against ulcers, for instance. They're called proton pump inhibitors -- medicines like Prilosec, Prevacid, Aciphex, Protonix, and Nexium.

A recent study in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" shows that taking these the stomach drugs in combination with Plavix could increase the risk of another heart attack by 25 percent, a trend doctors have been noticing across other studies.

The stomach drugs might interfere with how it's processed in the body.

"The stomach drugs are metabolized through the liver, and so there may be an interaction there that lowers the effectiveness of Plavix," explains Dr. Farah.

This is based on observing 8,000 heart attack patients who were put on Plavix at the Denver Veterans Administration Hospital. It's making doctors think carefully about prescribing proton pump inhibitors to this group.

"The physicians, obviously, based on this new data, should take a look and make sure that those patients absolutely need this type of medication, and if not, maybe that should be stopped," Dr. Farah urges.

If you take both kinds of drugs, call your doctor before making any changes. Additional study is needed, specifically comparing Plavix plus the stomach drugs against Plavix alone and watching for any difference in outcomes before drawing any firm conclusions about the combination's role in heart attack.