Antioxidant drug may reverse Atherosclerosis and prevent heart attacks and strokes: Study

Cysteamine decreased the amount of oxidised fat by 73 per cent and increased the stability of the atherosclerotic areas. It decreased the proportion of inflammatory white blood cells by 55 per cent and increased the area made up of smooth muscle cells by 85 per cent, ultimately reducing the chance of plaques rupturing and causing a blood clot.

Antioxidant drugs that have previously produced promising results in mice have proven disappointing in clinical trials to treat cardiovascular disease, but the researchers hope that with these promising results, cysteamine will prove a successful treatment in humans.

Professor David Leake, BHF-funded researcher who led the study at the University of Reading, said:

"The potential in this drug to protect against heart attacks and strokes and ultimately save lives superseded our expectations. We hoped it would cause plaques to grow at a slower pace, but we were amazed to find it reversed the process.

"Cysteamine would offer an entirely new way of treating atherosclerosis. We now want to look at the most efficient way to give this drug to patients, and hope that it can be taken to clinical trials in the next few years."

Professor James Leiper, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, which funded the research said:

"Heart attacks and strokes threaten the lives of people too often. In the UK, every 5 minutes someone is admitted to hospital with a heart attack, and the same is true of stroke. "The more ways we can find to treat the root cause of cardiovascular disease, the more lives and livelihoods that can be saved.

"If this antioxidant drug can show the same promising effects in humans, then it could offer a lifeline to thousands of people in the future."