People with asthma who must use a daily medication to control it face a higher heart attack risk than those who do not have the lung disease, a study finds.

Researchers looked at 6,792 participants in the six-community Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), which tracks early signs of developing heart disease.

They were, on average, 62 years old, and were almost evenly divided between men and women. People of different ethnicities were also included.

After adjustment for heart disease risk factors, researchers found that people with asthma who required daily medications were 60 percent more likely to have a cardiovascular event such as a heart attack, stroke, or related condition during a 10-year follow-up than people who did not suffer from asthma.