Heart disease vaccines in development could offer a lifetime of protection for children and help reduce artery clogs in adults, suggest new animal studies.

The world’s leading cause of death, coronary heart disease kills more than seven million people each year. Heart attacks usually occur when blood clots in the heart’s arteries cut off its blood supply. One of the main underlying causes is a rupture in fatty plaques lining the arteries, releasing phospholipids and proteins that stick to blood platelets and cause clots.

BetterHumans

About a decade ago, Jan Nilsson at Lund University in Sweden gave oxidized low-density lipoprotein (LDL)?so-called “bad cholesterol,” the main form found in artery plaques?to mice with the expectation of seeing expanded plaque formation. Instead, the mice were protected.

The finding opened the door to research into spurring immune responses that can fight heart disease.

“Lifetime protection”

Nilsson and G?ran Hansson of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden have now reported on research in which they injected groups of mice with LDL fragments or a saline control, and found as much as a 70% reduction in plaques. They also found that existing plaques appeared to stop growing. And there appeared to be no ill effects.

Nilsson also tested the effects of injecting antibodies to LDL fragments, and found that they were almost as effective in the short- term.

Nilsson is now working towards human applications with Swedish company Bioinvent, and both researchers hope human trials can begin within two years.

“It is an extremely attractive idea,” Andrew Newby of the UK’s Bristol Royal Infirmary told New Scientist magazine. “In principle it would be a relatively short-term treatment, but give lifetime protection.”

The research was presented in Cambridge, England at a recent meeting of the European Vascular Genomics Network, and was reported by New Scientist.