Home Health & Fitness Popular Drugs Used to Treat Nausea and Vomiting Aren’t As Good As...

Popular Drugs Used to Treat Nausea and Vomiting Aren’t As Good As We Thought

Popular Drugs Used to Treat Nausea and Vomiting Aren't As Good As We Thought
Diabetes Patients Face Elevated Cardiac Arrest Risk from Specific Medications, Study Indicates

The Upset Truth: Trusted Antibiotics Fall Short of Expectations

Upcoming findings from the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Hamburg, Germany highlight a significant concern for diabetics taking specific medications.

The study reveals that diabetics on certain antibiotics, antipsychotics, and prokinetics (medications addressing nausea and vomiting) face an increased chance of a severe cardiac event. The concern lies with these drugs altering the heart’s electrical rhythm, specifically causing QT-prolongation.

Key Drugs Causing QTc-Prolongation:

  • Prokinetics: Domperidone
  • Antibiotics: Macrolides, Fluoroquinolones
  • Antipsychotics: Haloperidol

Diabetes UK’s recent statistics show a staggering 4.3 million people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in the UK. This number heightens the concern, as those on QTc-prolonging antibiotics, for instance, may be more susceptible to life-threatening cardiac events.

Cardiac arrest, a primary mortality cause, is when the heart ceases to circulate blood. Peter Harms from Amsterdam UMC notes that type 2 diabetics inherently have double the risk of experiencing a sudden cardiac arrest.

Harms, alongside his team, evaluated GP records to understand the clinical traits tied to sudden cardiac arrests in type 2 diabetics, considering patients with and without prior cardiovascular issues. This ten-year study (2010-2019) in Noord-Holland involved 3,919 type 2 diabetics, with 689 experiencing sudden cardiac arrests.

Upon assessing clinical data like medication records, blood readings, and historical health information from five years preceding a cardiac arrest, the team identified several associated risk factors:

  1. History of arrhythmias (68% elevated risk)
  2. Uncertain smoking habits (40% elevated risk)
  3. Insulin administration (138% risk increase)
  4. Use of QTc-prolonging prokinetic drugs (66% elevated risk).

Moreover, diabetics without prior cardiovascular issues but with lower fasting glucose levels, indicative of overly strict blood sugar control, faced a 150% increased cardiac arrest risk. Additional identified risks were severe hypertension, unsatisfactory blood lipid levels, and QTc-prolonging drugs.

Concluding the findings, Harms emphasized the importance for general practitioners to recognize the potential dangers of excessively tight glycaemic control and the prescription of these widespread medications.

Image Credit: Getty

Exit mobile version