Antianginal Drugs and Heart Attacks: What You Should Know – Healthline

Angina is a symptom of ischemia to your heart. Ischemia is when proper blood flow is affected. When your heart doesnt get enough blood or oxygen, chest pain can occur.

You can experience stable or unstableangina.

These types of angina are what you might get specific medications to address.

Doctors primarily prescribe antianginal medications to help lower your chest pain from stable angina.

Some of these antianginal medications do help lower your risk of a heart attack, but others dont.

Three major classes of antianginal medications exist.

Beta-blockers prevent the stimulation of beta receptors in your heart. When stimulated, beta receptors can cause your heart to beat faster. In some people, a rapid heart rate causes chest pain because your heart is beating so fast that it cant pump blood well.

By slowing down your heart rate, beta-blockers also lower how much oxygen and blood your heart needs to work. This can help lower your chest pain.

Examples of beta-blockers include:

Their names usually end in -ol.

Calcium channel blockers slow how quickly calcium moves into the cells in your heart and blood vessels. As a result, your blood vessels widen, and your heart needs less oxygen to work well. These effects help lower your chest pain.

Some calcium channel blockers lower your heart rate, too. These include verapamil and diltiazem. If you take these medications with beta-blockers, your heart rate could get too low.

Other calcium channel blockers include nifedipine and amlodipine. These dont usually lower your heart rate, but theyre very effective vasoconstrictors. This effect can help lower your risk of ischemia and lower your chest pain.

Nitrates are medications that cause your blood vessels to widen or dilate. This allows more oxygen-carrying blood to flow through your heart, which lowers your chest pain.

Doctors can prescribe short- or long-acting nitrates. Short-acting nitrates include medications such as sublingual (goes under your tongue) and spray nitroglycerin.

Those who experience an episode of chest pain are to use a spray or sublingual tablet once every five minutes until your chest pain goes away. If it doesnt go away after three doses, call 911 or local emergency services.

If youre having a heart attack, a doctor may give you nitroglycerin to help reduce your symptoms until you receive treatment. The nitroglycerin isnt necessarily treating your heart attack, but it could help your symptoms.

Long-acting nitrate medications include nitroglycerin, isosorbide dinitrate, and isosorbide mononitrate. True to their description, these medications work longer than short-acting nitrates to relieve your chest pain. Nitroglycerin is available in pill form or can be applied via a special patch that slowly releases the medication.

These medications are second-line therapies. This means doctors wont usually prescribe them first but may prescribe them if you cant take beta-blockers or calcium channel blockers or if these medications arent working well enough to lower your chest pain.

In a large observational study on people with stable ischemic heart disease, taking antianginal drugs lowered their overall risk of death by 25% and death specifically from myocardial infarction (a heart attack) by 17%. Researchers didnt break down the specific types of antianginal medications a person took. But they concluded taking at least one antianginal medication helped to lower a persons risk of a heart attack.

But other studies exist that have found these drugs dont decrease your likelihood for having a heart attack. But the medications may make symptoms of heart attacks less severe.

Still, other studies say beta-blockers help to lower your risk of a heart attack if youve had a heart attack before. Nitrates and calcium channel blockers dont lower your risk of a heart attack.

Theres a lot of research to be done to figure out the benefits of antianginal drugs besides lowering chest pain.

Link:
Antianginal Drugs and Heart Attacks: What You Should Know - Healthline