By Sam Blanchard Health Reporter For Mailonline
Published: 16:00 GMT, 7 March 2019 | Updated: 00:14 GMT, 8 March 2019
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'Revolutionary' drugs which could reduce the damage caused by heart attacks are being developed by scientists.
The medications could block harmful chemical signals produced when the organ's blood supply is interrupted.
A lack of oxygen then releases chemicals which cause sections of tissue to die and can leave people with heart failure, raising the risk of further heart attacks or strokes.
Tests of an experimental drug reduced heart damage after an attack by as much as 60 per cent, raising hopes it could improve survival rates in humans.
Heart attacks cause more than 200,000 hospital visits in the UK each year – one every three minutes.
More than 200,000 hospital visits in the UK are caused by heart attacks each year, and many patients are left with permanent heart damage which makes the muscle less able to pump blood around the body (stock image)
Researchers led by Imperial College London, funded by the British Heart Foundation, have begun developing the heart-saving drugs.
They hope to get the medications through safety testing and onto patient trials by 2021 in a bid to revolutionise care after heart attacks.
'Finding a drug that could limit the death of heart muscle during and after a heart attack, and stop the decline towards heart failure, has been a target of research for decades,' said Professor Metin Avkiran, associate medical director at the BHF.
'But, despite a number of promising candidates in the past, we still have no drugs that can do this in routine clinical use.'
Professor Michael Schneider, from Imperial College, added if the drug works as they hope it will it will be a 'revolution in the
