The American Heart Association’s new study released on Monday has revealed that the use of cocaine in young or otherwise healthy patients could sometimes cause heart attack symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath, anxiety, palpitations, dizziness, nausea, heavy sweating and palpitations.

According to the New guidelines published online in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, the doctors need to know the symptoms of a heart attack in young patients with no heart disease risk factors caused by cocaine use. These symptoms include chest pain, shortness of breath, anxiety, palpitations, dizziness, nausea and heavy sweating. The drug use also results in increased blood pressure that can increase the risk of bleeding into the brain if a patient is given clot-busting drugs.

Dr. James Reiffel, professor of clinical medicine at Columbia University Medical Center/New York Presbyterian Hospital, said, "Not knowing what you are dealing with and giving the wrong therapies could mean death rather than benefit.”

The government's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration data revealed that the number of cocaine-related users visiting ERs rose 47 percent from 1995 to 2002, increasing from 135,711 to 199,198. The majority of these visits are of younger people, around the age of 35.

Dr James McCord, cardiology director of the chest pain unit for the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit who headed the panel that drafted the AHA statement, said, "More commonly, these are younger people. The most common age group is about 35 to 44 for patients who come to the emergency department after cocaine use, having chest pain." "The symptoms that they get with the cocaine are very similar to a heart attack," said Dr. James McCord,

The AHA report articulated that on most occasions, chest pain related to cocaine occurred within three hours of using the drug, but this is not always the case though, as cocaine can stay in the body for 18 or more hours after use, and still cause complications.
Dr. McCord said, while patients are in an observation unit, there is also an opportunity for healthcare providers to offer drug-cessation counseling.

McCord said, "Currently, the level of drug counseling available in most observation units, particularly at night, amounts to a pamphlet on drug abuse and referral phone numbers. This is an area where we can do a better job. We should use that hospital visit as a teachable moment to educate these patients on how they can improve their health and offer them counseling and referral programs for drug cessation.”

According to McCord, Cocaine can cause a heart attack, but only about 1 percent to 6 percent of patients with cocaine-associated chest pain actually have a heart attack, the statement says. Still, doctors say it's important for anyone with chest pain to get it checked out. It increases blood pressure and the heart rate, constricting arteries into the heart.

"Your heart rate goes up because your heart needs more oxygen, then it shrinks the arteries to the heart," said McCord.