Principal investigator at the Institute of Oncology Ljubljana: Srdjan Novaković PhD

Cardiovascular diseases still represent the major cause of morbidity and mortality in developed countries. The most important and most effective global approach to decrease the incidence of cardiovascular diseases is their effective prevention. Despite the fact that the current non‐pharmacological and pharmacological strategies slightly restricted the burden of cardiovascular diseases, it is estimated that their incidence will further significantly rise due to unhealthy lifestyle and the ageing of the population in next decades. The current strategy of prevention actions is focused on non‐pharmacological and pharmacological restriction or on the treatment of risk factors for cardiovascular diseases (hypercholesterolemia, arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, smoking, increased body weight, physical inactivity, etc.).

In the proposed project we will further study the new, innovative treatment approach for the cardiovascular diseases prevention. The project will consist of clinical and non‐clinical studies, the major aims of the project are: to examine the effectiveness of the new innovative therapeutic approach to arterial ageing in the new, patient groups (as described above) and to examine the impact of new innovative therapeutic approach to the heart muscle function or its effect on diastolic dysfunction and to examine the precise mechanism of action ‐ cascading path at the molecular level, using several experimental methods. We expect that the results of this multidisciplinary project will contribute significantly to the clinical as well as to a basic knowledge in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases. We will explain the mechanisms of action of our innovative therapeutic approach and also prove the effectiveness of the approach in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases. We anticipate that we will establish a new, convenient, secure, user‐friendly and cost‐effective approach in primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular diseases.

Details about the project are available on the website SICRIS: Potential of low, sub-therapeutic doses of statins and sartans in primary and secondary cardiovascular disease prevention.