Use Of Cholesterol Drugs By Patients Without High Cholesterol Level

Use Of Cholesterol Drugs By Patients Without High Cholesterol Level.
When the US Food and Drug Administration in February 2010 approved the use of the cholesterol-lowering statin treat Crestor for some bodies with customary cholesterol levels, cardiologist Dr Steven E Nissen cheered the decision. "You have to go with the ordered evidence," said Nissen, who is chairman of cardiovascular drug at the Cleveland Clinic sildenafil. "A clinical trial was done and there was a substantial reduction in morbidity and mortality in man treated with this drug".

But Dr Mark A Hlatky, a professor of salubrity research and policy and medicine at Stanford University, has expressed doubts about the FDA move. He worries that more common people will rely on a pill rather than diet and exercise to cut their heart risk, and also points to studies linking statins such as Crestor to muscle troubles and even diabetes enlargement. "I haven't seen anything that changes my intellect about that," Hlatky said.

So, will millions of in good health Americans soon join the millions of less-than-healthy population who already take these blockbuster drugs? The FDA's Feb 9 rubber stamp of expanded use of rosuvastatin (Crestor) was based on results of the JUPITER study, which involved more than 18000 men and women and was financed by the drug's maker, AstraZeneca. People in the trial who took the drug for an average of 1,9 years had a 44 percent crop risk of heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular problems compared to those who took a placebo - results so unresolved that the trial was cut short. Based on JUPITER, an FDA warning committee voted 12 to 4 in December to approve widened use of the drug.

The males and females in the trial included men over 50 and women over 60 with normal or near-normal cholesterol levels. However, these individuals did have drugged levels of C-reactive protein, a marker of swelling that has also been linked to cardiovascular problems. They also had at least one other heart risk factor, such as obesity or inebriated blood pressure.

For that specific group, Crestor makes sense, Nissen said. "Over a five-year time of time, you prevent one death or minor stroke for every 25 people treated," he noted. Whether or not others with general cholesterol should take Crestor or another statin remains unclear. "Not one and all with normal cholesterol should be treated," Nissen said. "You should give it to people with a spacy enough risk".