Sleeping pills increase the risk of stroke and heart attack in heart failure patients eight-fold, Japanese researchers have found.
The study, led by Dr Masahiko Setoguchi, was presented at the Heart Failure Congress 2014, in Athens, Greece.
Researchers retrospectively examined the medical records of 111 heart failure patients who were admitted to Tokyo Yamate Medical Centre between 2011 and 2013.
They collected information on the presence of coexisting cardiovascular and other medical conditions, medications administered during hospitalisation and those prescribed at discharge, laboratory test results, electrocardiogram, echocardiogram and chest radiographic data and vital signs at admission and discharge.
Study participants were followed up for 180 days after they were discharged from hospital. The study endpoint was readmission for heart failure, or cardiovascular-related death.
Patients were divided into those who had heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) and those who had heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF).
Multivariate analysis showed that HFpEF patients who were prescribed sleeping pills were at 8 times greater risk of rehospitalisation for heart failure or cardiovascular related death than HFpEF patients who were not prescribed sleeping pills.
* The Congress also heard from Professor Ewa Jankowska, who told the delegates that negative iron balance predicts survival in patients with acute heart failure.
She said that patients with acute heart failure have a major collapse in homeostasis. Iron is a key micronutrient that is required for the maintenance of homeostasis.
The data that she and her fellow researchers have indicate that iron may be important for clinical outcomes in chronic heart failure and correction of iron deficiency in these patients is beneficial.
* A Danish study, presented to the Congress, showed that heart failure hospitalisation more than doubles during inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) flares.
Dr Søren Kristensen said that patients with new-onset IBD had a 37% increased risk of hospitalisation for heart failure during a mean follow-up of 6.4 years compared to the healthy population. But the risk more than doubled during periods of IBD activity.”
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