Researchers at Flinders are hoping a new drug will halve the risk of two of the nation’s biggest killers.

The fish oil based treatment has already been hailed a success overseas in reducing stroke and heart attacks.

The new treatment lowers patients’ triglyceride levels, a fat-like cholesterol that's found in your blood stream.

With an existing heart condition and type two diabetes, patient Barrie Cunningham is keen to take part in the trial.

”A lot of my friends have high cholesterol, diabetes. If they can find something to cure me, they can find something to cure them.”

Professor Nikolai Petrovsky says: “Cholesterol lowering drugs are currently the best treatment there is for someone who's had a heart attack, to prevent them having a second.”

However those drugs only reduce the risk by 30%.

The drugs on trial are already available in Japan, and if this Australian trial is successful, it could be approved for use here, and reduce the risk by around 50%.

Researchers are looking for people over fifty-five, who are taking cholesterol medication and have either heart disease or diabetes.