Polypill key to preventative medicine

Taking several pills for one condition is an undesirable but necessary scenario for many, but a new study has shown people are much more likely to take preventative medicine if they’re combined in a single fixed-dose pill.

The multi-drug pill or polypill was compared to the normal combination of medicines – aspirin and cholesterol-lowering and blood pressure-lowering drugs – in 2,004 people with cardiovascular disease from India, the Netherlands, UK and Ireland. The study found that after an average of 15 months’ follow-up, the proportion of people in the polypill group still taking their medication was a third higher than in the group receiving their normal care.

“The reality is that large numbers of people who have already suffered heart attacks or strokes either don’t receive these medications or get out of the habit of taking them. The findings suggest that providing them in a single pill is a helpful preventative step,” said Professor Simon Thom, lead author from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London.

Thom suggests that the new finding dispel several myths about the polypill, which also improved blood pressure and cholesterol levels simply because people took the recommended medication more regularly.

“These results show that polypills are a viable strategy for heart attack and stoke survivors. This is most relevant to the large number of high-risk individuals globally who don’t take recommended medications long-term,” said co-author Professor Anthony Rodgers from the University of Sydney.

Most of the patients in the study had already had a heart attack or stroke, while others were at high risk based on their blood pressure, cholesterol or smoking status. Thom noted that trial participants were almost universally eager to adopt the polypill if made available.

The study has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.