The medical arena finally welcomes the polypill for senior citizens aged more than 50, according to a report by the British Heart Foundation (BHF). The team believed that prescribing polypills to individuals aged above 50 could help them control their cholesterol and blood pressure levels.
Both the aforementioned conditions are considered to be high risk factors for heart attack and stroke. The polypill used in the trial was made of 3 blood pressure lowering medications and a statin for controlling blood cholesterol. A set of persons aged over 50 was exposed to this new drug. As per the outcomes, the volunteers seemingly encountered a 12% reduction in their blood pressures and 39% drops in LDL cholesterol proportions.
Natasha Stewart, BHF Senior Cardiac Nurse, expressed, “Research into polypills is encouraging, but there are still many questions to answer before this ‘wonder drug’ is prescribed by doctors. This research only studied a very small number of people, so we’d need to see further large scale trials on a wider population to get more detailed results. It is also hard to say if the near-perfect adherence rate for taking the pills would be seen in real life.”
Published in the journal PLoS One, the study put forth a new discovery that could prevent deaths occurring due to heart diseases. However, the team believed that medicines can never be a ‘substitute’ for a healthy lifestyle. Good eating habits and regular exercise should keep all forms of conditions at bay. Apart from the inherited factors that are not in our hands, lifestyle modifications have always shown promise in the medical realm.
The findings of this study are in line with recent reports encouraging the use of heart medicines among elderly individuals.