A person’s heart attack risk soars shortly after taking cocaine (SN: 6/5/99, p. 356). Researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo now calculate that roughly one-fourth of nonfatal heart attacks among people ages 18 to 45 result from the drug. Using data collected between 1988 and 1994 in a national survey, physician Adnan I. Qureshi and his colleagues found that of 10,085 people, 532 used cocaine regularly. People using the drug were roughly seven times more likely to have a nonfatal heart attack than nonusers were. Less than 10 percent of people in this age group who have a heart attack die from it. The study will appear in an upcoming Circulation.
