Common drugs can reduce risk of dying from heart attacks, strokes by 50 per cent: McMaster study

A study led by Hamilton researchers has found that taking a combination of common drugs can significantly drop the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.

Research led by McMaster University distinguished professor Dr. Salim Yusuf found that fixed doses of Aspirin, statins (commonly used to lower cholesterol) and blood pressure medications can halve the risk of heart attacks, stroke and death related to cardiovascular disease.

It's almost a dream come true," said Yusuf, who's also executive director of the Population Health Research Institute. To develop a method to prevent half the burden of the commonest disease in the world is extremely satisfying."

About 80 per cent of heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular-related deaths occur in people without a prior history of cardiovascular disease. In 2017, ischemic heart disease (disease caused by narrowed arteries) led to 1,726 hospitalizations, making it the health outcome responsible for the highest hospitalization rate in Hamilton.

It was also responsible for the most deaths - 616 - in 2012, according to a 2018 report from the city's healthy and safe communities department.

Yusuf and a global team of researchers analyzed more than 18,000 patients across the world without pre-existing cardiovascular disease from earlier trials and saw that adding Aspirin to their drug combos yielded significant results.

The combinations reduced the risk of heart attacks by 53 per cent, stroke by 51 per cent and death from cardiovascular disease by 49 per cent, according to a release.

That is a really big reduction," said Dr. Philip Joseph, an associate professor at McMaster and the study's first author, adding that older populations benefited the most. The drugs are also easily accessible and relatively cheap, Joseph said, making the research easy to implement quickly.

The results were praised by international groups such as Wellcome Trust and the World Heart Federation, whose president called the findings extraordinary" and a huge opportunity to tackle the condition globally" in a release.

Yusuf said global organizations will help spread the word about the study so countries across the world can benefit.

Even if the uptake is modest, it's going to have a big effect," he said.

Maria Iqbal is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator covering aging. Reach her via email: miqbal@thespec.com.