ORLANDO, Fla. — It’s been a dream for a decade: a single daily pill combining aspirin, cholesterol medicine and blood pressure drugs - everything people need to prevent heart attacks and strokes in a cheap, generic form. Skeptics said five medicines rolled into a single pill would mean five times more side effects. Some people would get drugs they don’t need, while others would get too little. One-size-fits-all would turn out to fit very few, they warned. Now the first big test of the ‘polypill’ has proved them wrong. The experimental combo pill was as effective as nearly all of its components taken alone, with no greater side effects, a major study found. Taking it could cut a person’s risk of heart disease and stroke roughly in half, the study concludes. The approach needs far more testing - as well as approval from the Food and Drug Administration, something that could take years - but it could make heart disease prevention much more common and more effective, doctors say. ‘Widely applied, this could have profound implications,’ said Dr. Robert Harrington, an American College of Cardiology spokesman and chief of Duke University’s heart research institute. ‘President Obama is […]