Arthritis pill ‘key to heart disease’
A PILL used to treat arthritis could hold the key to beating heart disease.
Thousands of lives could be saved each year if the treatment proves a success, with high-risk patients taking the drug as a preventative measure.
Heart and circulatory diseases claim 200,000 lives each year in the UK, accounting for one in three deaths.
Heart disease alone kills 88,000 people annually making prevention a major health priority.
New research has found that inflammation plays a major role in the development of coronary heart disease.Two international genetic studies of 300,000 people by Cambridge University and University College London pinpointed a specific protein.
It now means that anti-inflammatory drugs currently used to treat rheumatoid arthritis could also be used to reduce atherosclerosis – the build up of fatty deposits in arteries.
One such drug, tocilizumab, is already prescribed to sufferers from rheumatoid arthritis. Experts have long suspected that inflammation plays a role in heart disease, but until now no clear link has been found.
Heart disease alone kills 88,000 people annually making prevention a major health priority
The new research was published online in The Lancet medical journal.
Professor Jeremy Pearson, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, which co-funded the studies, said: “These studies provide very strong evidence that new medicines which reduce inflammation could be a powerful tool in helping to combat heart disease.”