Painkiller ‘can increase heart attack risks’

Patients using diclofenac were found to be 40 per cent more at risk than those who were not using the drug, a study published in Plos Medicine found.

Diclofenac was the most commonly prescribed non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) in Britain last year, with six million prescriptions written for it. It is also available to buy over the counter.

Researchers from the Hull York Medical School and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Canada analysed 51 studies into the impact of a range of NSAIDs on more than 2.7 million patients.

Dr Patricia McGettigan said: “In choosing which one of the many available NSAIDs to use, patients and doctors would benefit from knowledge of the balance between benefit and harm for individual NSAIDs.

“For example, diclofenac, the NSAID most commonly prescribed in England in 2010, was associated with an increase in cardiovascular risk of 40 per cent, compared with non-use.

“At high doses, the increase in risk was almost doubled.