New drugs could lower heart attack risk when combined with statins

New fat-lowering drugs could help reduce the risk of heart attacks when added to statins, new research has found.

A genetic study, undertaken by the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, found that lipoprotein lipase enhancers could be paired with statins to reduce levels of triglycerides (a type of fat) in blood.

The researchers hope that the findings can help stimulate a clinical trial, so clinicians and pharmaceutical companies can test the efficacy of the new drugs.

Statins are commonly used to lower cholesterol levels and are believed to be effective at preventing heart disease. In the UK, heart disease effects over 7 million people and is responsible for over a quarter of a million deaths every year, according to the British Heart Foundation.

A major contributing factor to heart disease is high levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or “bad cholesterol”.

Our bodies can typically break down triglycerides with lipoprotein lipase and scientists are using this to develop new agents that enhance the activity of this enzyme.

MRC’s research suggests that in theory, those new heart drugs could be used in combination with statins and other cholesterol-lowering drugs to reduce the risk of heart attacks. However, there hasn’t been a large-scale trial to show their efficacy. The MRC team used genetic data from a range of studies to theorise their likely efficacy and safety results.

Dr Luca A. Lotta, senior clinical investigator at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, said: “Our study suggests that these new triglyceride-lowering agents could give additional benefits to patients with heart disease when added to statins. This combination could prevent more heart attacks as well as reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.”

The research looked at the genetics of 400,000 people in the UK and was able to simulate the effects of a clinical trial, to assess the likely effects of statins and these new LPL-enhancing drugs.

It found that people who carried both triglyceride-lowering DNA variants in the LPL gene and cholesterol-lowering variants in several other genes (simulating the protective effect of statins) had a lower risk of heart disease compared with people with only one of either of these sets of DNA variants.

The researchers also believe that the drugs could reduce some of the potential side-effects that come with statins. Statins can potentially increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and these new drugs could improve blood glucose control when paired with statins, therefore reducing the risk of patients developing diabetes.

Dr Lotta said: “We’re using genetics to gain insight and help to predict the likely result of future trials. Studies that simulate clinical trials are invaluable because large-scale trials are expensive, take years to conduct and considerable resources – scientists need strong evidence of a drug’s likelihood of success before it gets to the trial stage.”