A large new study found that a blood-thinning drug available in Europe and Asia improved the chances of surviving a heart attack, while a simple sugar-based solution that once looked promising did not help. The research was conducted on more than 20,000 people in India, China and Latin America. Patients on the blood thinner, Reviparin, had a 13 percent lower risk of dying, having another heart attack or a stroke within 30 days after being stricken, compared with patients given injections of placebos. The drug is used in Europe and parts of Asia to prevent and treat blood clots but not heart attacks. Results were disappointing, though, for the sugar-based solution, studied since the early 1960's as a possible method for keeping heart muscle tissue alive during a heart attack. The study found no significant differences in the rates of death, cardiac arrest and recurrent heart attack 30 days after the initial attack in patients who received the intravenous infusion for 24 hours and in those who did not. The research appears in The Journal of the American Medical Association.