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A new study found that taking a combination heart health drug, plus aspirin, leads to fewer cardiovascular events in intermediate-risk people than placebo.
The researchers followed about 5,700 participants without cardiovascular disease but who had a high risk. Some were given a combined daily pill containing statins and multiple blood pressure lowering drugs, with or without aspirin. Daily aspirin alone was also tested against a placebo group.
The polypill contained 40 mg of simvastatin, 100 mg of atenolol, 25 mg of hydrochlorothiazide and 10 mg of ramipril. During a mean follow-up of 4.6 years, people in the polypill plus aspirin comparison group were significantly less likely to suffer death from cardiovascular causes, heart attack, stroke, resuscitated cardiac arrest, heart failure, or revascularization.
Furthermore, participants in the polypill-alone group showed a trend towards cardiac risk benefits. But the aspirin-only comparison group had no significant differences in death from cardiovascular causes, heart attack, or stroke, reported Salim Yusuf, Ph.D., of McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario.
Notably, the incidence of hypotension or dizziness was 1.5 percent higher in the polypill groups than in the respective placebo groups, the researchers found. This problem was solved by lowering the dose of polypills, they said.
Doctors have been testing inexpensive combination pills for more than a decade, and some are currently being sold by companies outside of the United States, STAT reported. The new study is the first to show their worth, US doctors told the news.
The full results were published Friday in New England Journal of Medicine.
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