Coronary heart disease

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Aspirin. Taking a small (75 mg) daily dose of aspirin makes your blood less likely to form clots in your coronary arteries and reduces your risk of having a heart attack.

Statins. These drugs help to lower your cholesterol levels and so slow down the process of atherosclerosis.

Beta-blockers. These drugs slow your heart rate and reduce the pumping power of the heart. This reduces your heart's demand for oxygen. Beta-blockers also widen blood vessels helping to lower blood pressure.

ACE inhibitors. These drugs are often used in people with heart failure or after a heart attack. They lower your blood pressure.

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Surgery

Angioplasty (also known as percutaneous coronary intervention or PCI). In this operation a collapsed balloon is threaded through the blood vessels until it reaches the arteries of the heart. The balloon is inflated to widen the narrowed coronary artery. A stent (flexible mesh tube) is sometimes inserted to help keep the artery open afterwards. The stent sometimes releases a drug that helps to keep the blood vessel open. You should be able to go home the day after the operation.

Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG). In this operation, the surgeon takes a piece of blood vessel from your leg or chest and uses it to bypass the narrowed coronary arteries. The bypass provides the heart with more blood. This is open-heart surgery and requires a longer stay in hospital.