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Read this one folks. More evidence-based options have emerged for secondary prevention. The Improved Reduction of Outcomes: Vytorin Efficacy International Trial (IMPROVE-IT)4 reported that adding ezetimibe to effective statin therapy in stable patients who experienced an acute coronary syndrome reduced low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) from 70 mg/dL to 54 mg/dL (to convert LDL-C from mg/dL to mmol/L, multiply by 0.0259), and reduced risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease outcome at 7 years from 34.7% to 32.7%. The Further Cardiovascular Outcomes Research with PCSK9 Inhibition in Subjects with Elevated Risk (FOURIER) trial5 reported that the addition of evolocumab, a proprotein convertase subtilisin–kexin...

Repatha cut by 20 percent the combined risk of having either a heart attack, stroke or a heart-related death. That happened to nearly 6 percent of people on Repatha versus more than 7 percent on the dummy drug. The benefit grew with longer use, and was 25 percent the second year, said Sabatine, who consults for Amgen and other drugmakers. The drug cut by 15 percent a broader set of problems — the ones above plus hospitalization for chest pain or an artery-opening procedure. Nearly 10 percent of folks on Repatha had one versus more than 11 percent on the...

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force on Sunday issued new guidance for the use of cholesterol-busting statin drugs. The report greatly expands the universe of people who should be screened to see if they need the medication to everyone over age 40 regardless of whether they have a history of cardiovascular disease. The recommendations also support the position of the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association, which in 2013 radically shifted their advice from suggesting that doctors focus on the level of a patient’s low-density lipoproteins (LDL) or “bad cholesterol” to looking at a more comprehensive picture...

In a rather self-serving review article entitled “A historical perspective on the discovery of statins,” Japanese biochemist Akira Endo hits all the conventional and PC notes in his 10-page (including references) trip down memory lane. From the get-go, in the abstract itself he tells us that… “Cholesterol is essential for the functioning of all human organs, but it is nevertheless the cause of coronary heart disease. Building on that knowledge, scientists and the pharmaceutical industry have successfully developed a remarkably effective class of drugs–the statins–that lower cholesterol levels in blood and reduce the frequency of heart attacks.” We would expect...

[SNIP....Poor Dad. He gave up all his favourite foods for nothing. It turns out that for most people, the cholesterol in the food you eat has little or no connection to the cholesterol in your blood, or to heart disease either. “There’s never been a single study that showed higher egg consumption is related to higher risk of heart disease,” Walter Willett, a nutrition scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health, told New York Magazine recently. Last month, in an epic climbdown, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advice Committee, whose guidelines influence millions of people, finally dropped its recommendation to...

“MY SPIRIT IS BROKEN” Will the New Statin Guidelines Do More Harm Than Good? Part 1: A $29-billion-dollar-a-year industryWhen he was nearing the end of his career, Henry Gadsden, then-CEO of pharmaceutical giant Merck, gave an interview to Fortune magazine in which he said that he regretted that he couldn’t sell drugs to healthy people. He said his dream was to be able to peddle his company’s wares to everybody, like chewing gum giant Wrigley’s. Mr. Gadsden’s dream soon began to come true. A few years earlier, Japanese biochemist Doctor Akira Endo surmised that a compound that could inhibit the...

Just looking for some Freeper help on where the best and cheapest place to purchase Atorvastatin (generic Lipitor) is. Would be interested in online, clubs (Sam's Club) etc.

We’re overdosing on cholesterol-lowering statins, and the consequence could be a sharp increase in the incidence of Type 2 diabetes. This past week, the Food and Drug Administration raised questions about the side effects of these drugs and developed new labels for these medications that will now warn of the risk of diabetes and memory loss. The announcement said the risk was “small” and should not materially affect the use of these medications. The data are somewhat ambiguous for memory loss. But the magnitude of the problem for diabetes becomes much more apparent with careful examination of the data from...

Simvastatin is taken by around three million people in order to lower their cholesterol and reduce the risk of having a heart attack. However an analysis of clinical trial data in America has found that high doses can cause muscle damage and a rare condition which induces kidney problems and may be fatal. Patients were told not to stop taking simvastatin but advised to talk to their doctor if they have concerns. The American medicines regulator, the Food and Drug Administration, has issued a warning to patients to be alert to signs of problems when taking the 80mg daily dose...

Patients taking statin drugs were almost 50 percent less likely to die from flu, researchers reported on Thursday in a study providing more evidence the cholesterol-lowering drugs help the body cope with infection. The findings are compelling enough to justify doing controlled studies in which some patients are given the drugs deliberately and some are not, said Meredith Vandermeer of the Oregon Public Health Division, who helped lead the study. "Our preliminary study shows these cholesterol-lowering medications called statins are associated with a decrease in mortality," Vandermeer told a news conference at a meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of...

Inhibitors of HMG-CoA reductase (statins) are widely used medications for reduction of cholesterol levels. Statin use significantly reduces risk of cardiovascular disease but has also been associated with lower risk of other diseases and conditions, including dementia. However, some reports suggest that statins also have detrimental effects on the brain......Our data suggest that simvastatin and pravastatin differentially affect expression of genes involved in neurodegeneration and that statin-dependent gene expression regulation is cell type specific (excerpted)

Prostate Cancer Can Be Halted With Anti-inflammatory And Statin Used In Tandem, Study Suggests ScienceDaily (Apr. 14, 2008) — Researchers at Rutgers' Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy have shown that administering a combination of the widely used drugs Celebrex (celecoxib, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug) and Lipitor (atorvastatin, a cholesterol lowering drug) stops the transition of early prostate cancer to its more aggressive and potentially fatal stage. Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the United States, with more than a quarter-million new cases appearing each year, according to the American Cancer Society. The findings...

Elderly people taking statins had fewer of the twisted nerve-cell fibers that are common in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease, researchers reported last week in a study based on brain autopsies. The significance of the finding remains unclear, but this is the first time the potential effects of the cholesterol-lowering statins on brain pathology have been assessed by autopsy. Epidemiological studies of statins and Alzheimer's have had mixed results. The researchers examined the brains of 110 men and women ages 65 to 79 who were enrolled in a larger study of dementia and had donated their brains for...

Perhaps you heard it? The wail last month from the labs of heart researchers and the offices of Wall Street analysts? Pfizer Inc., the pharmaceutical giant, halted late-stage trials of a cholesterol drug called torcetrapib after investigators discovered that it increased heart problems — and death rates — in the test population. Torcetrapib wasn’t just another scientific misfire; the drug was to have been a blockbuster heralding the transformation of cardiovascular care. Statin drugs like simvastatin (sold as Zocor) and atorvastatin (Lipitor) lower blood levels of LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol, thereby slowing the buildup of plaque in the arteries....

Source: Society of Chemical Industry Date: January 18, 2007 New Study To Test Statin-Parkinson's Link Science Daily — Researchers are sufficiently worried by new study results that they are planning clinical trials involving thousands of people to examine the possible link between Parkinson's disease and statins, the world biggest selling drugs, reports Patrick Walter in Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. Suggestions of a statin link are not new, but the results of a recent study linking low LDL cholesterol to Parkinson's provide the strongest evidence to date that it could be real, because statins work by reducing...

Policosanol and Cholesterol Revisited Policosanol, a mixture of waxy alcohols derived from sugar cane, rice bran oil, or wheat germ oil, has remarkable benefits for atherosclerosis that go beyond lowering cholesterol. Doctors recommend statin drugs to lower cholesterol, often even for people with normal serum levels, noting that these drugs have other benefits in stabilizing plaque and protecting endothelial cells. A friend told me that she lowered her cholesterol from 224 to 178 by taking policosanol, but her doctor was concerned that she might not be getting “all the benefits” of statins (but of course she was also avoiding the...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 - AstraZeneca's recent full-page newspaper advertisements defending the safety of its cholesterol-lowering pill, Crestor, are "false and misleading," in part because serious concerns remain about the safety of the drug, federal drug regulators said Wednesday. The advertisements stated that "the F.D.A. has confidence in the safety and efficacy of Crestor" and that the agency "as recently as last Friday publicly confirmed that Crestor is safe and effective." Neither is true, said a letter from the Food and Drug Administration to AstraZeneca. In fact, days before the advertisements ran, top agency officials were widely quoted expressing concerns about...

ONDON, May 14 — Britain will become the first country in the world to sell a cholesterol-reducing drug, called a statin, without a prescription. Starting in July, a low dosage of the drug Zocor will be sold over the counter to people at moderate risk of heart disease, a number that could reach 5 million to 10 million. That group includes all men older than 55, as well as men over 45 and women over 55 who smoke, are overweight, have a family history of heart disease or come from the Indian subcontinent, all groups that are at higher risk...

<p>The future of heart disease treatment is coming into focus with a growing emphasis on potent drug cocktails that fight obesity, help smokers quit, ease inflammation and restore a healthy blood-cholesterol balance.</p> <p>The shift may arrive in time for many aging baby boomers, doctors say, with several promising drugs undergoing pivotal tests in humans.</p>