Women with heart disease are not getting the drugs that they need to help prevent future heart attacks from occurring, new research finds. The study, released in Tuesday's Annals of Internal Medicine, found that after their first heart attack, the majority of women do not receive prescriptions for drugs such as beta blockers or cholesterol-lowering medications that are proven to help reduce the risk of subsequent heart problems.
Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco found that only one third of women who should have been using beta blockers—which slow the heart rate —were taking them. Also, only half the women who might have benefited from cholesterol-lowering drugs were using them.. Even aspirin, the over-the-counter blood-thinner, was underused—only 80 percent of participants took it after experiencing their first attack. And it seems that men, too, have reason to worry: Although the current study followed only females, previous research has shown that men are also under-treated in terms of preventing heart problems.
