Researchers present at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Orlando, Florida suggested that a new pill combining blood sugar drugs, a cholesterol-lowering statin, aspirin and folic acid could benefit one day people at risk of suffering a heart attack.
The study was published in the online issue of the journal The Lancet.
Study researcher Salim Yusuf, MD, of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario and colleagues checked how the polypill works in 2,053 healthy individuals free of cardiovascular disease, but with a risk factor such as high blood pressure or a long-term smoker. The participants were treated at 50 centers across India. They were either given the “magic” pill or were assigned to one of eight groups given individual components of the pill or combinations of them. The follow-up period was of three-months.
The polypill is a combination of three blood-pressure-lowering drugs from different classes: the beta-blocker atenolol, the ACE inhibitor ramipril, the diuretic hydrocholorothiazide, plus the statin simvastatin and a 100-milligram dose of aspirin. The pill was formulated by Cadila Pharmaceuticals of Ahmedabad, India, which also sponsored the study.
The study showed that the polypill, taken just once a day, has the potential to slash a person’s risk of heart attack and stroke by about half.
“Since each component of the polypill can reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke by 25%, [it’s reasonable to expect that] you can get at least twice that improvement with five components,” Yusuf said.
The polypill was even better than that as it was well-tolerated by participants in the trial and showed no evidence of problems with the increasing number of active ingredients. Moreover, some of the ingredients counteracted side effects of some others, according to Yusuf. The side effect rate “was identical for the polypill as for the five separate drugs. This was a pleasant surprise,” Yusuf said.
Now, the researchers plan a larger trial involving about 5,000 people with one risk factor for heart disease to confirm the results.
The findings come at a time when the number of people suffering from heart disease is on the rise, becoming the No.1 killer in the United States in the last years. The condition claims the lives of nearly 1 million Americans every year. Nearly 40 percent of all female deaths in US occur from cardiovascular disease, including coronary heart disease and stroke. Heart attack alone accounts for 310,000 deaths in the U.S. yearly, or 850 a day, a number equaling deaths caused by breast cancer, lung cancer, stroke and AIDS combined.
Studies have shown that high blood pressure, high levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol, diabetes, smoking, being overweight, being physically inactive, stress or having a family history of early heart disease are all factors increasing the risk of heart disease. If some of these factors cannot be controlled such as genes running in your family or stress, some others like smoking and alcohol use can be important steps you can take to prevent heart disease. Tobacco smoke is risky, as is exposure to secondhand smoke. Alcohol use also increases blood pressure.
