Cocaine may be the cause of emergency room visits of young adults who have symptoms similar to those generated by a heart attack, such as chest pain, shortness of breath, anxiety and palpitations. The announcement by the American Heart Association is a warning to both doctors and patients. For the latter, it is crucial that they are sincere to their doctor about whether they did consume cocaine.

The new scientific statement released Monday by the American Heart Association (AHA) also urges doctors to ask about cocaine in order to avoid heart attack treatments which can be lethal in combination with the illegal drug. Some treatments have the opposite effect when associated with cocaine, AHA said.

Patients need to inform their doctor if they have taken cocaine in the last 18 hours or so. Even if the "high" lasts much less, the drug is still running through the bloodstream and can interact with other medication.

"If the patients are alert and can talk to you, typically you want to tell them, 'Look, it is important for us to know if you are taking cocaine because it could change the way we treat you,'" said Dr. James McCord, cardiology director of the chest pain unit of the Henry Ford Medical System in Detroit, in a statement. "If a patient is unconscious, a drug test could be done at the physician's discretion," Dr. McCord said.

If a patient has taken cocaine in the last three hours, it is much more likely that chest pain is not the result of a heart attack. This means that additional testing is needed to confirm or eliminate the possibility of heart-related trouble. It is also important for patients to know that admitting use of an illegal substance to a doctor is confidential information that won't be reported to law enforcement.