Study: No heart risks for drugs used to stop smoking

CHICAGO — Two popular drugs used to help people stop smoking are as safe for the heart as nicotine patches and placebos, according to research requested by U.S. and European regulators.

The results come from an extension of a big study of Chantix and Zyban that earlier found no increased risks for severe psychiatric problems, including suicidal behavior. Those findings were reported in 2016.

“It’s enormously reassuring,” said Dr. Nancy Rigotti, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Tobacco Research and Treatment Center. She was not involved in the research.

“We now know it’s a lot safer to use these drugs to help people quit smoking than to continue smoking, Rigotti said.

The original study involved 8,000 smokers randomly assigned to daily use of Pfizer’s Chantix, Glaxosmithkline’s Zyban, nicotine patches or placebos for 12 weeks. The extended study tracked about 2,400 participants for a year.

During and after treatment, there were five heart-related deaths and 22 nonfatal heart attacks and strokes, pretty evenly distributed among the four groups.

The few other heart problems also occurred at similar rates in each group.

The study was published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. It included adult smokers from the United States, Canada, Mexico and several European countries.

In the original study, by the last three weeks of treatment, 34 percent of Chantix users had quit smoking, 23 percent of nicotine patch users, almost 23 percent of Zyban users and 13 percent of those on placebos.