Dr. Frans J. Th. Wackers of the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., found that patients with obstructed blood flow -- ischemia -- who aggressively treated their cardiac risk factors with medication were able to reverse the course of heart disease over a three-year period.

Patients were given stress tests to measure how well blood was flowing to the heart at the beginning of the study and again at the end.

The study, published in the November issue of Diabetes Care, found that although none of the patients exhibited symptoms of heart disease, 20 percent did poorly on their stress tests -- showing signs of obstructed blood flow. However, three years later, 79 percent of those whose initial stress tests were abnormal no longer showed any sign of obstruction.

Doctors usually treat obstructed blood flow to the heart with surgical interventions, such as angioplasty or bypass surgery but these findings suggest that alternative treatments, such as medication, may also be effective but further research is needed, Wackers said.