ORLANDO, Florida - Heart attack risk and cardio-vascular complications can be reduced by 25 and 15 percent respectively thanks to a combination of new drugs aimed to beat high blood pressure, preliminary results of an international study revealed Tuesday.
Initial analysis of a major clinical trial also showed that a new treatment strategy -- combining the calcium channel blocker amlodipine and angiotension converting enzyme inhibitor perindopril -- reduced the chances of developing diabetes by a third.
The northern European study of 19,342 people aged between 40 and 79 years old showed the combined treatment improved significantly on traditional ones for hypertension using the beta blocker atenolol combined with the thiazide diuretic bendroflumethiazide.
"Although these are only preliminary results, we are confident the overall results will follow the trend we have seen so far," said Dr. Peter Sever, of Imperial College, London, who oversaw the study presented Tuesday to the American College of Cardiology.
Sever told reporters the study looks at "a strategy rather than the individual drugs" to control hypertension.
Perindropril is marketed under the commercial name Aceon, marketed by CV Therapeutics and Solvay Pharmaceuticals, while amlodipine goes by the name Norvasc, a product of Pfizer, which part financed the study.
03/09/2005 03:52 GMT