VOA常速英语2013--心脏病人更倾向于服用单一药物（在线收听）

Heart Patients More Likely to Take Medication When in Single Pill 心脏病人更倾向于服用单一药物

WASHINGTON  Many patients who have heart disease or who have suffered a stroke dont take their medications as regularly as prescribed. One study shows that a number of stroke patients stop taking their pills within three months after having a stroke. A new study in Britain finds that if patients with heart disease can take a single pill instead of several pills, they are more likely to stay on their medication. 

Patients at risk for heart attack or stroke may be taking a lot of pills. Some could reduce blood pressure. Other pills could control cholesterol. Still others might be prescribed to prevent a heart attack.

当心脏病或者通风发作时，患者通常会冒险服用大量药片。有些药会起到降血压的作用，有些则控制体内胆固醇的含量，还有些药可能会起到预防心脏病的功效。

Henryk Pycz, who has both high blood pressure and diabetes, participated in a study to see if he could do better in managing his health by reducing the number of pills he had to take.

Henryk Pycz同时患有高血压和糖尿病，他参加了一项调研，看能否通过减少药物服用量来提高他的健康程度。

"When I was taking the medication consisting of a variety of tablets, I'd have either five, six or seven tablets to take," he said.

“当我服药时，我需要连续服用5,6甚至7种不同的药片。”他表示。

Dr. Simon Thom, from the National Heart and Lung Institute at the Imperial College in London, knew it was hard for patients to manage all those medications. "We know there's a big shortfall in the coverage and continued usage of preventative medication, particularly in lower middle income countries," he said.

伦敦国家大学心肺研究所的Simon Thom博士了解到，要让患者服用如此之多的药物对他们来说是非常不容易的。“我们知道在药物覆盖面和持续用药方面还存在着巨大缺口，这个现象尤其在中低收入国家显得尤为突出。”

Dr. Thom led a study that involved more than 2,000 patients. Almost 90 percent of them had suffered a stroke or had heart disease. The other 10 percent had a high risk of having one. Half of the participants received a combination daily medication known as a polypill that contained statins, blood pressure medication and another drug like aspirin to prevent blood clots. The other participants were told to continue taking their regular medications. Dr. Thom says the results clearly favored the polypill.More patients at the end of the trial were taking indicated medications in the form of the fixed dose combination polypill than were in the usual care group, he said.

Thom博士开展了一项包含2000多患者的实验。其中，将近90%的人患有中风或心脏病，其他10%也是这两项病症的高危人群。半数病人每天服用由含有他丁类药物、降压类药物和像阿司匹林一样的控制血液凝块类药品混合而成的复方制剂，其他病人会继续服用普通药物。Thom博士表示结果显示复方制剂显然更有效。“在实验结束时，较常规护理组而言，更多的患者服用了指定的固定剂量的复方制剂”他说。

The patients who took the polypill had improvements in control of both blood pressure and cholesterol. Pycz said he also learned something.

服用复方制剂的病人对血压和胆固醇的控制都有了明显的提高。Pycz说他从中也学到了知识。

"It helped me to understand that controlling your medication is important. The polypill meant that I was never out of sync I always had the correct amount of tablets to take, he said.

Dr. Thom says the study has huge implications, especially for those who skip their medications.

Thom博士表示这项研究意义非凡，特别是对于那些放弃服用药物的人。

The polypill has a big public health opportunity to bridge the gap of under usage of indicated and effective therapeutic medication, he said.

“复方制剂给予了大众一个保持健康的机会，他使在指示下服用有效的治疗药物成为可能”。

Dr. Thom says that's because those who made the biggest gains in taking in taking their medications as prescribed were the ones who were most likely to skip them at the beginning of the trial.

Thom博士说那些从按标准服药中受益最多的人正是那些从实验刚开始就想放弃的人。

The study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association. 

这篇研究刊登在美国医学协会杂志上。