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Heart Beat: Drug combinations best for heart disease

Heart Beat

Drug combinations best for heart disease

British researchers made a splash in 2003 when they suggested that everyone over age 55 should take a Polypill to prevent heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular conditions. This pill would contain aspirin, a cholesterol-lowering statin, the vitamin folic acid, and three blood pressure drugs — a diuretic, a beta blocker, and an ACE inhibitor.

Whether everyone needs this combination remains to be seen. Most of these drugs, though, clearly help people with heart disease. A report in the May 7, 2005, British Medical Journal suggests that the Polypill idea might be right for people with heart disease.

Researchers from the University of Nottingham scoured a database of more than one million people across the United Kingdom, looking for those diagnosed with heart disease between 1996 and 2003, and the medications they were prescribed. In this group, the chances of dying were linked with medications taken. Those who took aspirin, a statin, and a beta blocker were 83% less likely to have died compared to those who weren’t prescribed any medications. Other combinations trumped single drugs.

These findings support what cardiologists have been doing for some time now — recommending a combination of drugs to their patients with heart disease. If this study and others help spark development of a real Polypill, it could make life easier for the countless people who faithfully take an assortment of pills each day.

Last updated:	August 21, 2006