People with active asthma may have an increased risk of suffering a heart attack, two new studies indicate.

A person is seen as having active asthma if they have documented asthma symptoms, they regularly require asthma medication or they have visited their doctor about their asthma within the last year. US scientists decided to look into the link between this and heart health.

In one study, a team from Wisconsin looked at almost 6,800 people who were being monitored for early signs of heart disease. They had an average age of 62.

After taking into account heart risk factors, the scientists found that people with asthma who required medication every day for the condition, were 60% more likely to suffer a heart-related event such as a heart attack or stroke during a 10-year follow-up period, compared to those without asthma.

"Physicians should do all they can to control every other modifiable cardiovascular risk factor in patients with asthma," commented the scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.

They found that people using asthma medication had much higher levels of inflammatory markers in their body compared to those without asthma. Those with a history of asthma, but who did not need medication on a daily basis, had medium levels of these markers.

In the second study, scientists in Minnesota looked at 543 people who had suffered a heart attack and 543 who had not. The average age of the participants was 67.

After taking into account heart risk factors, such as obesity and high blood pressure, the study found that those with asthma had a 70% increased risk of suffering a heart attack compared to those without asthma.

Meanwhile, people with active asthma were twice as likely to suffer a heart attack compared to people with asthma who did not display any recent symptoms.

"Chest discomfort or pain can be confused as a symptom of asthma, but because asthma increases the risk of heart attack and treatments for each are quite different, patients need to take chest pain and other symptoms of heart attack seriously and seek prompt treatment," the team from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said.

Details of these findings were presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2014 in Chicago.

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