2023-09-24 10:04:00
The American health authorities have introduced a new medical drug into a treatment plan to prevent heart attacks, according to what the newspaper reported.Wall Street Journal“The American newspaper in its new report.
The main strategy for preventing heart attacks has always been to lower harmful cholesterol in the blood using medications called statins.
But in June, the US Food and Drug Administration approved a new, low-dose version of colchicine, as the first drug ever to treat cardiovascular inflammation.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the introduction of the drug colchicine, which is used primarily to treat gout and other diseases, to treat inflammation of the heart and blood vessels, represents a “new approach” to preventing heart attacks.
Colchicine provides new confirmation of a concept that has gained momentum in cardiology over the past 25 years: that inflammation is the main cause of atherosclerosis – a clogged disease of the arteries – and that treating it can reduce the risk of a heart attack.
According to the same newspaper, adding a low dose of colchicine would enable doctors to hit two biological targets that cause heart attacks at the same time.
One previous study concluded that adding low-dose colchicine reduced the risk of cardiovascular disease by 31 percent in patients already treated with statins and other preventive medications.
“It’s regarding combining treatments” that are effective ways to reduce risk, said Dr. Paul Ridker, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Prevention at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
The two treatments “do not compete, but serve each other,” he said.
However, several things might limit cardiologists’ reliance on colchicine, including concerns regarding side effects and the emergence of several other new options for reducing the risk of heart attacks.
Redecker and other cardiologists familiar with the drug said doctors “may be slow” to prescribe it. He added that the drug “is not available to everyone, and should not be given to patients with kidney or liver disease, for example.”
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