Knee and Hip Replacements Linked to Heart Attack

 People over age 60 who have surgery to replace a worn-out hip or knee have a significantly higher risk of having a heart attack after their surgeries, a large new study shows.

Researchers found that one in 200 people who had a hip  replacement had a heart attack within six weeks of surgery. The study also found that one in 500 people who had a knee replacement had a heart attack within six weeks of surgery.

Compared to adults of the same age and sex who didn't have joint replacement surgeries, people who had hip replacements were 25 times more likely to have heart attacks, within two weeks of their procedures. People who had knee replacements were about 30 times more likely to suffer heart attacks in that same time period.

Those risks remained even after researchers adjusted their data to account for a variety of things that can increase the risk of heart attacks, such as:

• age
• sex
• socioeconomic status
• use of certain medications known to increase the risk of heart attacks, such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs 

To be sure, surgery is stressful. Previous studies have found that having surgery of any kind raises the risk of having a heart attack. That's especially the case for adults who are over age 60 with a history of heart disease.

Even thinking about surgery has been shown to increase the risk of a heart attack, notes ,  an anaesthesiologist.