Vaccines for heart attacks may be available within 5 years

Vaccines to check the deposition of fats in the (plaques) which is the major cause of heart attack will now possibly be available within five years to prevent heart attacks.

The vaccine will target the primary reason of heart attack rather than focusing on the secondary reasons such as high levels of bad cholesterol and blood pressure.

The major causes of heart attacks today are lack of exercise, poor diet, smoking and excessive alcoholism. However, there are many hereditary factors too, the Telegraph reports.

"People at high risk of heart attacks are likely to be the first candidates for immune approaches. Such treatments, since they have totally different modes of action, could be used in addition to the current therapies." Said Dan

Nilsson, professor of experimental cardiovascular research at Lund University, Sweden.

Working on this issue with Prediman Shah, professor at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles, a team of US researchers have successfully formulated a vaccine that is capable of reducing the formation of plaque by 60 to 70 percent in mice.

The vaccine CVX-210 has been developed as an injection by CardioVax is waiting for the final approval to carry out the clinical trials.

A condition of heart disease occurs due to formation of fatty plaques in the blood vessels making them narrow with time. These blood vessels are responsible to feed the heart. In addition to that, a part of plaque may break down causing a clot which can lead to the blockage of artery causing a heart attack.

These details of the findings were presented at the CardioVascular Biology meeting at Imperial College London.

-With inputs from IANS.