Painkillers like ibuprofen 'increase second heart attack risk' - Telegraph.co.uk

For those on prescription ibuprofen - with the average dose being 1,600mg per day - there was no increased risk of a recurrent heart attack within seven days, she said.

However, between eight days and 14 weeks the risk was raised by 50 per cent, compared to taking nothing.

It is not known exactly why NSAIDs increase heart disease risk, although Olsen said they appeared to increase blood clot formation and systemic blood pressure.

*Cardiac patients in hospital should be given blood-pressure lowering drugs in the evening rather than the morning, say Canadian researchers.

Doctors often give angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors to patients with heart failure or those who have had a heart attack on their morning rounds for convenience.

But the study by Tami Martino and Jeremy Simpson of Guelph University found this was ineffective.

Only giving them in the evening, before sleep, was effective, they found in a study of mice with high blood pressure.

They think the difference is because the heart follows a daily rhythm.

It repairs itself in sleep, and hormones that enlarge the heart peak during these hours as part of this process.

However, in cardiac patients this enlarging activity can cause damage. Giving ACE inhibitors in the evening reduces the nightly hormone peak and subsequently reduce potentially damaging enlargement, they concluded in their study, to be published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.