This archive report was first published on 23 August 2019.
Published on August 23, 2019, a study in Iran found that a daily pill reduced heart attacks by half. However, experts are questioning why this life-saving medication isn't being used more widely.
Dr. Tom Marshall, a cardiac disease prevention specialist at the University of Birmingham, acknowledged the anomaly in the study's results, saying, “I wish I had the answer.”
Baseline blood pressures in the population were not high, averaging 130 over 79, according to Dr. Marshall.
Dr. Frieden expressed concern that the trial did not provide information on whether blood pressure readings were taken by machine or by people with stethoscopes, which can lead to inaccurate results.
The trial was conducted in the Golestan Cohort, a group of over 50,000 Turkmen-speaking people enrolled in cancer studies administered by Iranian researchers in coordination with the World Health Organization and the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Rekha Mankad, director of the Women’s Heart Clinic at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, praised the study's design, particularly the inclusion of half the participants as women, and noted that the adherence rate was high, with over 80 percent of participants taking most of their pills.
