Beta blockers, the standard treatment after a heart attack for the last 40 years, may offer no benefit for heart attack patients and can raise death risk in some women, according to a study on Saturday that called for a rejig into the standard treatment paradigm.

Beta blockers are drugs commonly prescribed for a range of cardiac conditions, including heart attacks. It provides no clinical benefit for patients who have had an uncomplicated myocardial infarction with preserved heart function.

The study presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Madrid and simultaneously published in The New England Journal of Medicine and in the European Heart Journal, showed that women treated with beta blockers had a higher risk of death, heart attack, or hospitalisation for heart failure compared to women not receiving the drug.