Heart disease is a common cause of serious illness and death in smokers and is often a reason for people to stop smoking. Varenicline is one of the most commonly used drugs to help people quit smoking worldwide. When varenicline was launched in 2006, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) safety reviewers reported that existing data indicated it could raise the risk of adverse cardiac events. The FDA recently updated the label for Chantix based on a small increased risk of cardiovascular events among smokers with heart disease.
Comment: Did you catch that? "Heart disease is a common cause of serious illness and death in smokers". Sayz who?!
C-reactive protein (CRP), a well-established marker of low-grade inflammation is used to determine the risk for cardiovascular events. And guess what? Nicotine is a major anti-inflammatory agent, while varenicline increases the risk of adverse cardiac events. So perhaps the sentence should be changed into: "Heart disease is a common cause of serious illness and death in ex-smokers on varenicline?"
A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland; the University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom; and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, sought to investigate the serious cardiac effects of varenicline in tobacco users (smokers or smokeless tobacco users) compared with placebos in clinical trials. They looked at 14 trials that included 8216 patients (4908 people on varenicline and 3308 taking placebos). All trials except one excluded people with a history of heart disease.
Comment: Sorry, Doc, but what is truly heartbreaking is witnessing how in the world where human beings are being stripped off the last shreds of their dignity, privacy and individuality, those who are actually responsible for such soul-killing crimes are also busy with lying in a cruel and cynical way that they are suddenly concerned about our welfare.