Clogged arteries most common cause of cardiovascular deaths

Cardiologists have labeled atherosclerosis or clogging of arteries as the "most common cause" of heart disease and death in the world.

In the United States alone, about 700,000 Americans reportedly die each year due to cardiovascular events, prompting medical authorities to tag heart disease as the No. 1 killer in the country.

Results of medical studies indicated that even healthy, middle-aged people run the risk of building up bad cholesterol in their blood vessels which, if left unchecked, could lead to stroke, heart attack, or worst, death.

Minneapolis-based journalist Michelle Fay Cortez reported that researchers did imaging tests on almost 6,000 people with no symptoms to determine those who had plaque that was starting to collect on their artery walls.

"The final 984 participants, aged 45 to 70, had few risk factors for heart disease and no clear reason to take any of the cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins," Cortez said in her report.

A statin distributed worldwide by the London-based AstraZeneca was administered on the low-risk patients. The research showed that the statin stopped their plaque buildup from worsening.

According to Cortez, the results were presented at the American College of Cardiology meeting, where last year a similar study showed that the statin reversed artery-clogging plaque buildup in high-risk patients.

The newest study found that while the drug didn’t remove plaque, it cut bad cholesterol levels in half in healthy people, and boosted good cholesterol by eight percent.

"Low risk does not mean no risk," wrote Michael Lauer, of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, in an editorial accompanying the publication of the study dubbed Meteor, published in the recent Journal of the American Medical Association.

For many patients, the first clinical manifestation is a potentially catastrophic event, such as stroke, "heart attack or death," Lauer wrote.

Among 50-year-old men, half will develop full-blown heart disease during the remainder of their lives, as will one-third of women, according to the ongoing Framingham Heart Study.

It’s too soon to start doing imaging tests on all adults and giving those with signs of early heart disease the AstraZeneca statin or similar medications, Lauer said.

There’s not enough evidence yet that reducing plaque buildup will inevitably prevent deaths and complications like strokes, he wrote.

Additional studies are needed to see if early treatment can reduce the burden of heart disease, he said.

Like a shooting star in the night, the Meteor findings reflect a warning of problems lurking "out there" even in low-risk patients, Lauer wrote.

"While these trials will be difficult and expensive, even greater and less desirable challenges will occur by choosing to ignore the enormous public burden of atherosclerosis" in low-risk individuals, he said.

AstraZeneca submitted the results of the study along with two others, to US regulators in January, seeking approval of its statin as a treatment for atherosclerosis.

The company still plans to focus primarily on the 30 million Americans facing the highest risk of heart disease, officials said.

He statin’s sales soared more than 50 percent to $2 billion in 2006 after the study presented at ACC last year showed it trimmed the buildup of fat, calcium and other deposits in the arteries of high-risk patients by up to nine percent.

Recent surveys show just over half of high-risk patients fail to get their levels of bad cholesterol, which accumulates in the arteries, to recommended levels, said Mike Tilton, the company’s vice president for cardiovascular primary care.

"That’s going to remain our focus, the high-risk patients, where there is a huge unmet need," Tilton said in an interview. The new data just verify that (the statin) has a significant impact on a progressive, deadly disease."

Some researchers argue that the findings provide support for a policy of widespread screening for heart disease.

"The old saw against screening for subclinical atherosclerosis is that if you find something, there is no proof that treating it helps people," said Jim Stein, director for preventive cardiology at the University of Wisconsin, in an interview. "I have no doubt that longer-term treatment would reduce cardiovascular events."