Sunday Times 2
Polypill the ‘super pill’ can save millions of lives
A new ‘super pill’ could save millions of lives across the world, experts claim.
The pill, which contains a combination of drugs, leads to significant improvements in blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
As a result, the researchers say it offers ‘considerable potential to improve global health’.
A new 'super pill' could save millions of lives across the world, experts claim
Scientists at The George Institute for Global Health in Sydney, Australia, say the cheap polypill contains a combination of commonly-used blood pressure and cholesterol lowering medications.
It also contains aspirin and all of these medications help to prevent cardiovascular disease.
They say that patients who are at high risk of a heart attack or a stroke adhere better to their treatment when they take the polypill than when they are on conventional treatment.
This is because many patients fail to start, or continue, to take their medication when it is in the form of a large number of daily tablets.
They are much more likely to stick to taking one pill a day.
Therefore, this pill can significantly reduce their risk of suffering a potentially fatal stroke or heart attack.
The Single Pill to Avert Cardiovascular Events (SPACE) project saw scientists analyse data from 3,140 patients with established cardiovascular disease or at high risk of the illness in Europe, India and Australasia.
The results showed a 43 per cent increase in patient adherence to medication after 12 months with the polypill, in addition to improvements in blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
‘These results are an important step forward in the polypill journey and management of cardiovascular disease,’ said Ruth Webster from the George Institute for Global Health.
‘Most patients globally either don’t start or don’t continue taking all the medications they need, which can lead to untimely death or further cardiovascular disease events.
An important finding from our analyses is that the greatest benefits from a polypill were for currently untreated individuals.’
Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death globally, killing 17.3 million people each year.
Access to effective treatments, like polypills, could play a key part in achieving the bold World Health Organisation (WHO) target of a 25 per cent reduction in premature mortality from non-contagious diseases by 2025.
Professor Salim Yusuf, President-elect of the World Heart Federation said: ‘These results emphasise the importance of the polypill as a foundation for a global strategy on cardiovascular disease prevention.
‘It will improve patient access to essential medications at an affordable cost and wide use of the polypill can avoid several millions of premature cardiovascular disease events.
‘The polypill is, however, not a replacement for a healthy lifestyle and should be combined with tobacco avoidance, a healthy diet and enhanced physical activity.
‘This broad strategy, if adopted widely, can reduce cardiovascular disease to a large extent.’
© Daily Mail, London