Antibiotics Could Raise Heart Disease Problems - Experts

The United States (US) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the antibiotic clarithromycin (brand name: Biaxin) may increase the long-term risk of heart problems and death in patients with heart diseases.
These are contained in a press release issued by the FDA last Thursday, which urged medical doctors recommending the medication to carefully weigh the benefits and risks of the drug before prescribing it to patients with heart problems.
There’s no clear explanation for how clarithromycin would increase heart disease patients’ risk of death, the FDA stated. Antibiotics, also known as antibacterials, are medications that destroy or slow down the growth of bacteria.

They include a range of powerful drugs and are used to treat diseases caused by bacteria. However, in recent time, antibiotics are reported to be failing, making scientists to return to laboratories to find solutions to the problem.
The FDA, in the release, stated that its warning was based on a 10-year follow-up study of patients with coronary heart disease. The study found an unexpected and unexplained increase in deaths among heart disease patients who took clarithromycin for two weeks and were followed for one year or longer. One heart specialist said this type of alert is worth heeding, however.

The FDA said it has added a new warning about this increased risk for heart patients, and was advising doctors to consider prescribing other antibiotics to these patients. The agency added that it would continue to monitor safety reports in patients taking clarithromycin.
The antibiotic is used to treat many types of infections affecting the skin, ears, sinuses, lungs and other parts of the body. Doctors should talk to their heart patients about the risks and benefits of clarithromycin and alternative treatments.

If doctors prescribe clarithromycin to patients with heart disease, they should inform those patients about the signs and symptoms of cardiovascular problems, the FDA said. Similarly, the FDA advised patients taking the antibiotic to seek immediate medical attention if they experience symptoms of a heart attack or stroke, such as chest pain, shortness of breath or trouble breathing, pain or weakness in one part or side of the body, or slurred speech.

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Bed Sharing Could Lead To Baby's Death

Scientists have raised the alarm over the number of babies dying of suffocation, occasioned by an increase in the number of parents sharing beds with their infants.

According to the findings of a report published in ‘Paediatrics,’ babies are safest sleeping on their backs in their own cribs without any pillows, toys, blankets or other loose bedding. From 1999 to 2015, the suffocation death rate for babies younger than one year climbed from 12.4 to 28.3 fatalities for every 1,000 United States (US) infants.

Similarly, the study shows that in 2015 alone, this translated into 1,100 infant deaths that were entirely preventable.

The majority of these suffocation fatalities occurred while babies were in bed. Although, there is lack of data to show the trend of these activities in Nigeria where bed sharing between mothers and newborn is very common among low income and the poor, it is believed that this practice might also be impacting negatively in the country.

However, going by the guidelines from the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP), if babies do sleep in parents’ beds, parents should have a firm mattress, remove soft objects such as pillows, and move the bed away from the wall, as part of measures to ensure the safety of the babies.

Similarly, the AAP said parents should also be aware that bed sharing is most dangerous for newborns, less than four months old, premature babies and underweight infants, or if babies were exposed to tobacco during or after pregnancy.

Study co-author, David Schwebel, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said: “It may be that parents are not following `safe sleep’ recommendations to place infants in beds without stuffed animals, soft blankets, pillows, and other items that could cause suffocation.

Suffocation and strangulation deaths increased across the board for boys and girls, regardless of race, ethnicity or whether they lived in urban or rural communities, the study found. At least some of the increase in suffocation deaths might be due to a change in how these fatalities are categorised, researchers note.

Some fatalities that were attributed to sleep-related causes like sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) at the start of the study might have been categorised as accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed by the end of the study period.

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