New heart disease treatments

The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is expected to begin marketing its first combination pill that can treat high blood pressure and cholesterol. The prescription drug, known as Caduet, mixes two of Pfizer’s top selling billion dollar drugs – the cholesterol fighting Lipitor and blood pressure medicine Norvasc – into a single pill that can be taken once a day.

The ramifications are enormous as more pharmaceutical companies are looking to combine drugs, making it easier for consumers by allowing them to take only one form of medicine instead of two. Lipitor is the world’s best-selling drug, and Norvasc is a high-selling hypertension medicine. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration have already approved Caduet, after researchers spent more than four years working on the drug.

Millions of people around the world suffer from both high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Hypertension is persistent abnormally high blood pressure. Contrary to popular belief, raised blood pressure seldom causes symptoms until secondary complications develop in the arteries, kidneys, brain, eyes or elsewhere. The cause of hypertension in about 90 per cent of cases is unknown – and in such cases this is called “essential hypertension”. Essential hypertension is very common, affecting around 20 per cent of the adult population. Treatment involves a change in lifestyle and, if necessary, the prescription of drugs.

There are three main classes of drugs: Diuretics act on the kidneys, causing them to pass more water and salt in the urine and to reduce the volume of the blood, so bringing down the pressure; Beta-blockers interfere with the hormonal and nervous control of the heart, causing it to beat more slowly, so reducing blood pressure; and vasodilators help to widen the arteries.

In many cases of mild hypertension, a change in eating habits, regular exercise, a low-fat diet, no smoking and, if necessary a reduction in salt and alcohol intake are sufficient to get the blood pressure down to normal. Cholesterol is an important part of a healthy body, being a building block for steroids such as the sex hormones produced in the gonads. The most common cause of high cholesterol is excess animal fat in the diet. Treatment for high cholesterol include drugs that work in the lover, where most cholesterol is made, and others that reduce the absorption of cholesterol in the intestine.

There are two cholesterol-carrying proteins in the blood: high-density and low-density lipoproteins. The low-density form – or ‘bad’ cholesterol – may promote arterial disease, while the high-density form – or ‘good’ cholesterol may oppose it. People with high levels of cholesterol can reduce their risk of heart attack by following a diet low in saturated fats and by using cholesterol lowering drugs.

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New heart disease treatments

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