Any better than
Watermelon juice reverses hardening of the arteries ?
Or better than
Pomegranate juice consumption for 3 years by patients with carotid artery stenosis reduces common carotid intima-media thickness, blood pressure and LDL oxidation ?
Or better than
Coffee Could Be Cleaning Out Your Arteries?
Or better than
New study shows aged garlic extract can reduce dangerous plaque buildup in arteries?
Without that comparison this research is worthless. Which is why we need stroke leadership and a strategy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/11/15/drug-combo-reversed-plaque-buildup-in-heart-patients-arteries/
Statins are one of the biggest success stories of
modern medicine, credited with transforming cardiac care. Millions of
Americans take them based on scientific evidence that it reduces their
risk of heart attack and stroke, but the drugs are not for everyone.
There has been considerable debate about the balance of potential risk and benefit,
and a significant percentage of those who take statins have complained
of side effects such as muscle pain and cognitive effects like fuzzy
memory.
And so the search has been on for a new — and better — class of cholesterol-busting medication.
In recent years, there has been a lot of
hope about Amgen's Repatha (evolocumab) and other PCSK9 drugs (named for
proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 inhibitors), which were
approved by the Food and Drug Administration last year. But uptake of
the drugs has been slow because of the expense and because statins seem
to have worked so well for so many for such a long time. Insurance
coverage has also been an issue, with many patients complaining of
lengthy pre-authorization requirements.
The
results of one of the first significant trials of a PCSK9 drug were
presented Tuesday at a meeting of the American Heart Association,
providing evidence to back some of the promise that has surrounded the
medications.
The study, which was also published in the journal JAMA,
involved 968 patients in academic and community hospitals in North
America, Europe, South America and Asia who have coronary disease and
were already being treated with statins. In this double-blind,
randomized trial, they were given either an injection of evolocumab or a
placebo for 76 weeks. Researchers found that not only did
the evolocumab group attain very low low-density lipoprotein or “bad”
cholesterol levels — the lowest average level in a major trial of
cholesterol drugs — the combination also appeared to somehow reverse the
amount of plaque in their coronary artery walls.
The
authors of the paper noted that the trial has several limitations, with
one being its size. Another is that the patients involved already had
heart disease and it's unclear whether there would be a similar effect
for those without symptoms taking statins as a preventive measure, like
many people do. They also pointed out that patient retention in the
trial was at 87 percent (which is pretty good) but that this may have
affected the results. Lastly, the study looked at the volume of plaque
rather than other characteristics of coronary artery hardening.
The
study, directed by Steve Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic and Stephen
Nicholls of the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute,
was funded by Amgen.
The top-line results of a much larger study, known as Fourier
or the Further Cardiovascular Outcomes Research With PCSK9 Inhibition
in Subjects with Elevated Risk, on an estimated 27,500 patients at high
risk are expected to be released in early 2017.
No comments:
Post a Comment