Cocaine causes 'silent' heart damage

Cocaine use can silently damage users' hearts, raising their risk of heart attack and even sudden death, a study found.

Researchers found that 83 per cent of long term cocaine users had structural damage to the heart including swelling and tissue scarring, despite being without any symptoms of heart disease.

Around one in five cocaine addicts have myocarditis, or inflamed heart muscle, which can lead to heart failure and heart attack, past research found.

Cocaine use has also been linked to one in four non-fatal heart attacks in the under-45 age group.

Scientists from the G. Monasterio Foundation in Pisa, Italy, carried out a series of tests on 30 long term cocaine users without any symptoms of heart disease or heart problems.

These included blood tests, monitoring electrical activity over 24 hours (ECG), exercise stress tests, and magnetic resonance imaging of the heart, known as CMR.

CMR showed that 83 per cent of the group had sustained structural damage to the heart.

Nearly half had swelling of the left chamber of the heart, one of the two chambers responsible for pumping blood around the body.

Three out of four users also showed heart tissue scarring, possibly as a result of a silent heart attack, or toxic damage, the researchers said.

They also pointed out that while tissue swelling, usually an indication of recent cocaine use, is reversible, tissue scarring is not and results in permanent damage to the heart.

The researchers said the findings suggest that long term cocaine users may need to be screened for heart problems.

Maureen Talbot, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: “It is well known that cocaine is a potent drug that can have devastating consequences including heart attacks and sudden death in people with or without established heart disease.

“This small study shows that cocaine can "silently" cause irreversible heart muscle damage, which may take some time to become apparent. This damage can destroy your quality of life and even cause premature death.

“Cocaine use is linked to smoking and drinking too much alcohol, which can also damage the heart muscle. So this study adds weight to the substantial amount of existing evidence that cocaine kills.”

The study is published in the journal Heart.

This article was published on Tue 21 June 2011