Offering an effective and economical way to help people diabetics or heart patients avoid heart attacks and strokes, US researchers said on Thursday that a combination of three other drugs can help reduce cholesterol and blood pressure in high-risk patients.

The researchers said that a low-cost combination of a generic statin, a generic blood pressure pill and a low-dose aspirin can effectively reduce the chances of a heart attack or stroke by a substantial 80 percent.

For the study, published in the American Journal of Managed Care, the researchers observed over 170,000 members of California's Kaiser Permanente health plan. These members, averaging
68 years, were either suffering from heart disease or were diabetics, or had both conditions.

While 77.8 percent of the study participants had diabetes with or without heart disease, 31.7 percent had heart disease alone.

These patients were administered a daily dose of aspirin for two years, along a 40-milligrams-per-day dose of lovastatin for lowering cholesterol, and a 20-milligrams-per-day dose of lisinopril for lowering blood pressure. In the first year of follow-up, it was observed that the treatment helped prevent 1,271 heart attacks and strokes.

Commenting on the results, Marc Jaffe, MD, director of the Kaiser Permanente's Cardiovascular Risk Reduction Program, said: "People who picked up the medicine more than half the time had more than a 60 percent reduction in heart attack and stroke in the third year of follow-up."