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By Hiroshi Suzuki, Bloomberg, March 30, 2007
Japanese patients who took high doses of fish oil along with
statins, the standard treatment to lower cholesterol, had fewer
heart attacks and cardiovascular problems than those taking drugs
alone, a study in Lancet found.
The researchers, led by Mitsuhiro Yokoyama, a professor at Kobe
University Graduate School of Medicine, found that long-term intake
of fish oil plus statins helped high-cholesterol patients reduce
risks of deaths from heart failure by 19 percent compared with
patients on the medication alone.
Fish oil contains eicosapentaenoic acid, or EPA, a fatty acid
that researchers have long thought contributes to heart health.
No major study had previously looked at the effectiveness of adding
EPA to supplement statins such as Lipitor, the world's best-selling
drug, made by Pfizer Inc., and Zocor, made by Merck & Co.
``This study shows that EPA, at a dose of 1,800 milligrams per
day, is a very promising regimen for prevention of major coronary
events,'' Yokoyama said. The study was published in the medical
journal the Lancet today.
Japanese sales of drugs for cholesterol and cardiovascular diseases
rose 2.4 percent to 354 billion yen ($3 billion) in 2005, according
to health care research firm IMS Health Inc. Top- selling medicines
in that therapeutic category include Lipitor, which is marketed
in Japan by Astellas Pharma Inc., Daiichi Sankyo Co.'s Mevalotin
and Shionogi & Co.'s Crestor.
The global market for brand-named treatments for cardiovascular
illnesses was worth an estimated $76.9 billion in 2006, Lehman
Brothers Holdings Inc. said in a report in September.
4-6 Years
The study involved 18,645 Japanese people with high cholesterol,
with half randomly assigned to take 1,800 mg of EPA from fish
oil plus a standard statin dosage, and the rest taking only the
medicine. Participants were followed for four to six years. Further
studies should be conducted on other populations outside Japan,
Yokoyama said.
Japanese people typically consume more fish on a weekly basis
than people in other industrialized nations, at amounts higher
than the level seen to protect against fatal heart attacks. Such
differences in diet could affect the outcome of similar studies
in different populations.
`"Compared with drugs, invasive procedures, and devices,
modest dietary changes are low risk, inexpensive, and widely available,''
said Dariush Mozaffarian of Harvard Medical School and Harvard
School of Public Health. He was writing in a comment accompanying
the Lancet study.
Daiichi Sankyo is Japan's second-biggest drugmaker based on sales,
after Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Astellas is third.
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