Word: pravachol
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STATINS The more than 10 million Americans who take statin drugs to lower cholesterol may be enjoying some unexpected benefits. New studies suggested that regularly taking medicines like Lipitor, Lescol, Pravachol and Zocor may halve a patient's risk of developing colon and advanced prostate cancers while reducing their risk of pancreatic and esophageal cancers more than 50%. Another study showed that patients who aren't on statins can cut their risk of death following a heart attack more than 50% if they take them before hospitalization and within 24 hours after the attack. Doctors think the cholesterol- and inflammation...
Doctors have known for a decade that statin drugs can prevent or reduce the severity of cardiovascular disease by lowering blood levels of LDL. But how low is low enough? A landmark study of more than 4,000 heart patients compared a standard LDL-lowering regimen (40 mg of Pravachol) with an intensive regimen (80 mg of Lipitor) and found that even though both reduced LDL levels to below the recommended benchmark of 100 mg/dL, the patients on the higher dose were 16% less likely than those on the lower dose to get worse or die. The bottom line: what...
...lower the risk of glaucoma; another suggested that the drugs may offer relief from rheumatoid arthritis. That's the good news. The bad news is that statins don't work as well for everyone. A big study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found the statin Pravachol was up to 22% less effective in patients with two common variations in one of 10 genes involved in cholesterol metabolism. In the future, doctors may be able to test patients' genes to determine in advance who will benefit most from the drugs. --By Sora Song
...Pravachol and Lipitor are both statins--a group of cholesterol-lowering drugs that are widely used in the treatment of heart disease. Doctors have long known that Lipitor lowers the level of LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol, more than Pravachol does. Both groups of patients in this study--to be published in the April 8 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine but released a few weeks early--had their LDL levels reduced below 100 mg/dL--the target currently recommended by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) for folks who have heart disease or diabetes. The Lipitor...
...effort or the risk of side effects. "I'm currently treating patients with heart disease at LDL goals of 70 mg/dL," says Dr. Robert Eckel, chair of the American Heart Association's Council on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism. He says that if he can do that with Pravachol, he uses Pravachol. If not, he uses one of the other five statins currently available--depending on his patient's condition and insurance requirements. It's also important to use the lowest dose possible to avoid complications like muscle pain and body aches...