Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in New Zealand, causing 40% of deaths. The polypill is a conceptual tablet that is not available. In theory, use of the polypill if it was available could reduce mortality due to heart disease and strokes by 50- 80% and could enable a third of the population to live an average of 11-12 years longer. The treatment is cheap, with few side effects and based on data from hundreds of trials of the individual components.
The polypill aims to prevent cardiovascular deaths in people who are at risk, which is almost everyone in Western countries. This is very different to what doctors currently do, which is treat problems such as high blood pressure after they occur.
The polypill is 5-10 years away at least, and many experts believe that they will never be made available, as pharmaceutical companies cannot patent the product. Anyone can be prescibed the pills in separate bottles, but the polypill is being developed to make it easier for people to take the medicines.
For more information on the polypill concept, please see the polypill news blog, or scroll down for medical journal papers, newspaper and magazine articles and videos.
Polypack is a service that will package the polypill medicines that your doctor prescribes for you into easy-to-take daily sachets, making it easier to take the polypill components for many years.
Your doctor can include all or some of the following medications. Click on the medications below for detailed information.
Aspirin
Enalapril
Bendrofluazide
Simvastatin
Captopril
Cilazapril
Quinapril
Metoprolol
Atenolol
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