A Combination Pill Lowers Blood Pressure and Bad Cholesterol

[VOA ENGLISH]

A Combination Pill Lowers Blood Pressure and Bad Cholestero.mp3

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

Studies have shown that the fewer medicines a person has to take the more likely he or she will take them. Last week, a study was released about a new treatment that combines five medicines for heart disease in one pill. Salim Yusuf of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada was the lead investigator. He presented the findings at the American College of Cardiology Conference in Orlando, Florida.

The experimental drug is known as Polycap. It contains aspirin, a drug to lower cholesterol and three medicines to lower blood pressure. The study was carried out at fifty health centers across India. More than two thousand people between the ages of forty-five and eighty took part in the study. All had at least one risk factor for heart disease. These include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or being severely overweight.

The people were divided into nine groups of about two hundred people each. One group took Polycap. The other groups took either a single drug or different combinations of the medicines in the Polycap pill. The study showed that Polycap lowered blood pressure and cholesterol without many side effects. Doctor Yusuf said the single pill, taken once a day, could reduce the average person's risk of heart disease and stroke by about half. The maker of Polycap, Cadila Pharmaceuticals of India, paid for the study.

Cardiovascular diseases of the heart and blood vessels are the number one cause of death around the world. These diseases kill more than seventeen million people every year.

Eighty percent of them are in low and middle income countries. Doctor Yusuf said the single pill treatment could revolutionize heart disease prevention. People would be more likely to take one pill a day than many pills. And one pill would cost less than several pills.

Other heart doctors say heart disease prevention is important but not necessarily with pills. They say patients might be able to get the same results with changes in diet and exercise.

Doctors say that more research on Polycap is needed. They say the drug should be tested on thousands more people, including those in different risk, age and ethnic groups.  

And that's the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.

[세웅]

첫문장을 어떻게 해석하면 좋을까요? 헷갈리네요...;

[VOA ENGLISH]

먹어야 하는 약이 적을수록 약을 더 잘 먹는다~~(한알의 약으로 감기가 나을 수 있다면, 여러알의 조제약을 드시겠어요 아니면 약 한알만 드시겠어요? fewer를 숫자로 생각하세요)

[세웅]

답변 감사합니다. 그런데, that이하 내용에서 전체적 주어,동사가 뭔지 헷갈리네요..a person has to...이하 문장 전체가 the fewer medicines를 설명하고 있는건가요..? 그러기엔.. that이하에 '절'이 온다는거에.위배되서..헷갈리네요

[VOA ENGLISH]

세웅님 the more ~, the more 구문을 조금만 더 공부해 보실래요?