Cholesterol Drugs -

How Cholesterol Drugs Can Help

Cholesterol drugs are not always necessary, speak to your doctor and r emember you can significantly lower your cholesterol by switching from high-fat foods to those low in saturated fat and cholesterol, maintaining a healthy weight, and gradually working up to 30 to 60 minutes a day of vigorous exercise.

Sometimes, however, lifestyle changes aren't enough. If so, then cholesterol drugs that lower your levels of LDL can help. These drugs not only prevent new plaques from forming, but also may help repair damaged blood vessels.

If you have elevated LDL cholesterol, the most effective treatment is with diet, exercise and statin drugs. But which lipid lowering drug your doctor recommends depends on many factors. These include how much good and bad cholesterol you have and whether triglycerides in your blood are high. Your age also may be a factor. No single drug works well for everyone. Nor is it necessary to take the newest drug if your current medication is effective.

The Decision To take Cholesterol Drugs

The decision to take any kind of lipid lowering medication is a serious matter. Your doctor generally starts you out with a single drug. But if that fails to lower your LDL levels, he or she may either increase the dosage or prescribe a combination of drugs. After you achieve the goal set by you and your doctor, you must stay on drug therapy indefinitely to maintain results. Also have your cholesterol checked every four to six months.

You might also need to have your liver checked regularly. All types of cholesterol lowering drugs — with the possible exception of cholesterol absorption inhibitors — can cause liver function abnormalities. So you may need to have periodic liver function tests. Grapefruit juice interacts with some statins, causing blood levels of the medication to rise, which increases the risk of side effects.

If you have high cholesterol, the bottom line is that even a modest lowering of your cholesterol levels can reduce your risk of heart disease. If lifestyle changes haven't helped, talk with your doctor about whether you need cholesterol-lowering medications.

Statins currently available on the U.S. market include:

• Lipitor (atorvastatin) - Pfizer
• Zocor (simvastatin) - Merck
• Pravachol (pravastatin) - Bristol-Myers Squibb
• Lescol (fluvastatin) - Novartis
• Mevacor (lovastatin) - Merck
• Crestor (rosuvastatin) - AstraZeneca

Cholesterol Drugs Warning

At least 12 million Americans are taking medication to lower their cholesterol levels, mostly statins, and experts have recommended that another 23 million should be taking them, it's important to remain educated on this issue, the primary one being that they're linked to many potentially dangerous side effects.

All statins pose risks. Dangers of statins include, but are not limited to, a potential increase in liver enzymes so patients must be monitored for normal liver function, muscle aches, weakness, immune system suppression, an increase in cancer risk, and a serious degenerative muscle tissue condition called rhabdomyolysis.

Natural Alternatives

The good news is that research conducted in the U.S. and other countries prove that there several effective natural herbs and supplements that may help lower LDL and raise HDL or good cholesterol.

Choices for lowering cholesterol are important since the causes of high cholesterol levels are wide and varied by person to person. Natural remedies such as Guggul, Pantethine, Policosanol, Curcumin, and Beta-Sitosterol are just a few supplements that are easily available at low cost compared to prescribed drugs.

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