A "Polypill" describes a daily pill which may contain blood pressure lowering drugs, statins, aspirin and folic acid. A recent small trial showed that a daily Polypill regimen reduced blood pressure by 11% and cholesterol by 39% for over 50’s (Wald et al 2012).
The polypill scenario has been discussed for some time as a potential population level cardiovascular disease prevention strategy.
Certain key factors which will dictate whether a cardiovascular polypill scenario would influence cardiovascular mortality rates significantly in the UK include
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Is there sufficient evidence from larger scale clinical trials that polypills can work effectively?
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The polypill would have to be deemed cost effective to be implemented at the population level
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The long term adherence of a daily treatment regimen in the population would have to be sufficiently high.