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Editor: Robert Binstock
Profession: Paxil Side Effect Attorney

Category: Paxil News

In a study funded by GlaxoSmithKline, makers of the antidepressant/anti-anxiety medication Paxil, an apparent link between panic attacks and heart attacks has been discovered. According to the study of over 3,000 older women, women who reported one or more full-blown panic attack over a six month period were 3 times more likely to have a heart attack or stroke in the subsequent five year period.

The study enrolled women from 1997 to 2000 and followed their progress over the next five years. Forty-one of the 3,243 women had heart attacks or died from conditions related to heart problems. Another 40 women had a stroke during the time frame. The research was not based on doctor's observations but rather women's memories, and this lend some doubt to the conclusions drawn here.

Previous research has found that panic attacks are more common in women than in men. The researchers found that 330 of the women, ages 51 to 83 years at the start of the study, reported a full-blown panic attack during the previous six months. Of those, about 4 percent, went on to have a heart attack or stroke. That compares with 2 percent of the women who reported no panic attacks but who had heart attacks or strokes.

While this does create some alarm for those women suffering from anxiety it should not be a reason to everyone to jump on the Paxil bandwagon to avoid panic attacks. Paxil has plenty of problems of its own and there is no evidence that medication reduces the likelihood of heart attack and stroke.