By Claire Bates
Last updated at 10:40 AM on 17th March 2011


  • Heart and circulatory diseases cause one in three deaths in the UK

Each year in England, an estimated 111,000 people have a heart attack

Each year in England, an estimated 111,000 people have a heart attack. Scientists hope a new protein discovery will create better drugs

Thousands of lives could be saved each year, after British scientists announced a major breakthrough in understanding how heart disease develops.

Scientists from the University of Reading have found that a protein which is known to reduce cholesterol levels also inhibits the formation of blood clots.

Clotting is needed to prevent bleeding, but inappropriate clotting within the circulation, known as thrombosis, is the trigger for heart attacks and strokes - which kill more people in the UK each year than any other disease.

Drugs that target the protein, known as LXR, may therefore reduce cardiovascular disease for two separate reasons: controlling cholesterol levels and preventing thrombosis.

Professor Jon Gibbins said: 'This ground-breaking study paves the way for new and more effective medicines to prevent thrombosis.'

The team from the School of Biological Sciences targeted the LXR protein with anti-thrombotic drugs in mice. They found this reduced the stability of blood clots by 40 per cent, preventing clots from blocking blood vessels.

The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation and Heart Research UK. 

Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, said: 'Both anti-clotting and cholesterol-lowering drugs are vital in reducing the chance of a heart attack or stroke in high-risk patients, but are not always effective and don't suit all patients because of the risk of side-effects.

'This exciting discovery by Professor Gibbins' team shows that drugs which lower cholesterol through targeting LXR protein can also reduce harmful blood clotting - potentially opening up paths towards new, more effective treatments.'

Collectively, heart and circulatory diseases cause more than one in three of all deaths in the UK, accounting for more than 191,000 deaths each year.

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Vtamin E and vitamin c are far safer options,not the dreaded statins.

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You must write rightly: ADD YOUR COMMENT ... if politically correct! In fact, such as comment has been posted and soon thereafter removed ...: Unfortunately, nowadays, all around the world, physicians are erroneously thinking that all individuals are born equal. As a consequence, tobacco smoking would damage every heart coronary artery, and bring about Cancer in every smoker! On the contrary, as you may read in medical literature, predispositions to all disorders really exist. In addition, without a well-defined constitution, genetically transmitted by mother on the basis of mitochondrial respiratory chain impairment, the related disorder does not occur, despite an awful number of environmental risk factors

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Ah good more drugs to take. At this rate nobody will have any room to eat any lunch.

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