Over Half of Swedish Heart Attack Survivors Stop Essential Medications, Raising Mortality Risk

Each year around 22,000 people in Sweden experience a heart attack, and roughly 17,300 survive to require ongoing therapy to lower the risk of another event. An analysis of the Swedeheart registry indicates that more than half of these patients eventually stop taking cholesterol-lowering, antihypertensive or anticoagulant medication. Those who cease treatment within the first year have up to twice the risk of dying in the following three years compared with patients who remain on therapy.

Emil Hagström, a senior physician at Akademiska sjukhuset and co-author of the study, says the reasons may include a sense of recovery, side-effects, or loss of information during the transition from specialist to primary care. He stresses that patients need to understand their target levels for blood pressure and lipids, and that lifestyle changes such as quitting smoking, exercising and eating healthily remain crucial.

While the observational design cannot prove causality, the results echo large clinical trials that have shown these drugs reduce repeat attacks and mortality. The study was published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology and received partial funding from Hjärt-Lungfonden.