A Toronto-led research group discovered that a simple medical device available in hospitals, doctor offices and every ambulance can reduce the size of a heart attack in half when used in a certain manner.

The Denmark study was spearheaded by Dr. Andrew Redington, division head of cardiology and senior associate scientist at Sick Kids hospital, and brought together a team of scientists from Toronto, Denmark and the United Kingdom.

As a part of the study, the team, whose findings were issued Friday in well known medical journal The Lancet, analyzed 333 Danish adults who were having heart attacks.

It revealed that 50% of the patients received a Sick Kids-developed method called remote ischemic preconditioning that utilizes a standard blood pressure cuff to reduce blood flow to an arm.

Those who suffered from preconditioning while en route to hospital had their heart attack sizes decreased by about 30%, compared with those who did not undergo the method, the study posted.

“In those adults having the largest heart attacks, the results were even more remarkable in that the heart attack size was reduced by about 50%”, Redington said in a Sick Kids video.