Cheap drug cocktail may halve heart disease risk

A cocktail of aspirin and four other generic drugs, combined in a single pill, may halve the risk of heart disease in middle-aged people, researchers said.

A study of 2,053 seemingly healthy volunteers in India shows the treatment known as a polypill may be a simple and effective way to combat heart disease, researchers said.

The pill combines a cholesterol-lowering medicine known as a statin and three blood pressure drugs with aspirin.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, killing 17.5 million people and accounting for about one in three deaths each year, according to the World Health Organization. The reductions in blood pressure, cholesterol levels and clotting seen with the combination pill could cut the risk of heart attack, stroke and death from heart disease in half, according to the study funded by India's Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd. and published in the journal Lancet.

"Before this study, there were no data about whether it was even possible to put five active ingredients into a single pill," said Salim Yusuf, from McMaster University's population health research institute in Hamilton, Ontario. "We found that it works," he said. "It could revolutionize heart disease prevention as we know it."

Doctors must ensure that a single pill doesn't lead people to abandon lifestyle choices, such as a healthy diet and regular exercise, which really benefit the heart, said Christopher Cannon, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, in an editorial. Larger, longer studies are needed to determine the most effective doses and ensure that the approach does save lives, Cannon wrote.

In the study, 400 people were given the combination pill known as Polycarp and about 200 people each were put into comparison groups that received a single medication, a mixture of the blood pressure drugs or the blood pressure drugs plus aspirin. The Polycarp patients had similar reductions in blood pressure and heart rate as the comparison groups, and a slightly smaller drop in cholesterol levels than those getting simvastatin, a generic version of Merck & Co.'s Zocor.

The patients had near normal levels of blood pressure, cholesterol and other laboratory markers of heart health. The researchers are studying whether the pill can prevent cardiovascular disease from developing in healthy people, rather than treating people who are already ill.