WARNING: BETA-BLOCKERS increase women's risk of death and cardiovascular events, according to new study

"For more than four decades, beta-blockers have been prescribed to nearly every heart attack survivor as standard therapy. This drug class, designed to slow heart rate and reduce strain on the heart, was long assumed to improve survival. Yet new evidence published in The New England Journal of Medicine and the European Heart Journal has upended this long-standing medical dogma. The REBOOT trial, the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind, shows that beta-blockers offer no measurable benefit for heart attack patients with preserved heart function-and may in fact harm women."

"In a large analysis of 8,438 patients across 109 hospitals, women on beta-blockers had 45 percent higher risk of death, reinfarction, or heart failure hospitalization, and a 90 percent higher risk of all-cause death compared to women not on the drugs. Men showed no such harm, revealing a major sex-specific drug safety gap."

"Why beta-blockers harm women disproportionately: Women metabolize these drugs differently - with higher blood concentrations at the same dose, smaller heart chamber sizes, and distinct cardiovascular physiology. These factors make standard doses potentially toxic, especially for women with normal or high heart-pumping function (LVEF ? 50 percent)."

REBOOT randomized 8,438 heart attack survivors across 109 hospitals to beta-blocker therapy versus no beta-blocker, focusing on patients with preserved left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF ≥50%). No clinical benefit in mortality, reinfarction, or heart failure hospitalization was observed in the overall cohort. Women receiving beta-blockers experienced substantially higher risks: 45% greater risk of death, reinfarction, or heart failure hospitalization and 90% higher all-cause mortality compared with women not on beta-blockers. Pharmacokinetic and physiologic differences—higher blood concentrations at the same dose, smaller ventricular chamber sizes, and distinct cardiovascular physiology—appear to explain the disproportionate harm in women. Recommendations emphasize individualized therapy and prevention.

Read at Natural Health News