New drug linked to heart disease reversal
New drug linked to heart disease reversal
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Tuesday, 14, Mar 2006 09:59
A new drug could reverse the damage done by heart disease, new research has suggested.
The US scientists claim that a powerful type of statin could break down the fatty deposits that build up inside the arteries and can cause heart disease.
Rosuvastatin can reduce by half the levels of damaging LDL cholesterol in the body and boost levels of 'good' HDL cholesterol by around 15 per cent, the American College of Cardiology researchers found.
In a study of 349 patients over a two-year period at 53 community and tertiary care centres in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe, scientists say that 78 per cent showed a reduction in atherosclerosis, the build up of fatty deposits in the arteries.
"We believe that the current study has important implications for understanding the pathophysiology and optimal treatment of coronary artery disease," said the authors of the study, which will be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
"Traditional thinking has viewed atherosclerosis as an inexorably progressive disease for which even the most active therapies can merely slow advancement. The current study suggests that there is potential for a more optimistic strategy, in which aggressive lipid-modulating strategies can actually reverse the atherosclerotic disease process."
The study has been welcomed by the British Heart Foundation's medical director, Professor Peter Weissberg, who said it "encouragingly seems to demonstrate a small but definite regression of atherosclerotic plaques".
But he added: "However, this study wasn't designed to test whether this treatment actually saves lives, so whilst the results sound promising and are likely to translate into a better outcome for heart patients, we still need further studies to confirm whether the regression demonstrated translates to fewer heart attacks."
Rosuvastatin, or Crestor, has been linked to muscle-wasting disease but was approved for use by the US Food and Drug Administration last year.