Deadly lung disease also linked to heart attacks

"Patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis are three times as likely to experience severe coronary events - including heart attacks - than people without the disease, according to a recent study that analyzed the risk of cardiovascular disease in nearly 1,000 patients with IPF and more than 3,500 matched controls. "If you look at them over time, people with IPF have roughly a three-fold increased risk of acute coronary syndrome, which is a greater increase than you get from smoking," said Richard B. Hubbard, M.D., British Lung Foundation professor of epidemiology at the University of Nottingham and lead author of the study. The study was published in the second issue for December of the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine" - Huliq