Although the medications belong to a class of prescription drugs called HMG CoA reductase inhibitors, they are more commonly referred to as statins due to the names of the medications. Statin medications are among the most commonly prescribed medications in the world. So, which statin medication has the least amount of side effects, and can statin medication side effects be mitigated? What are statin medications? Unfortunately, high cholesterol levels can be life threatening because they increase your risk of experiencing heart disease, heart attack, and stroke due to the buildup of plaque in the blood vessels of the body. No one wants to experience unpleasant side effects as a result of their medication, but statins have a particularly high rate of intolerance. Concern about the side effects of statin medications, which are commonly used to treat high cholesterol, is widespread. Although many people in the United States could benefit from medication to manage their high cholesterol, only about 55 percent of those patients are currently taking the medication. Nissen says statins will "continue to be the cornerstone of therapy to prevent cardiovascular events." But for people who simply cannot tolerate a statin, he says, "we have an alternative for them.According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 95 million American adults currently suffer from high cholesterol (total cholesterol levels of 200 mg/dL or higher), while 29 million American adults suffer from very high cholesterol (total cholesterol level of 240 mg/dL or higher). There is currently no generic for Nexletol. Kluczynski's insurance plan covers the cost of Nexletol, but it can cost about $400 per month for people who are not covered by insurance. Statins are also relatively inexpensive with many patients paying less than $10 a month, given the many options, including generics. It's important to point out that statins are very well-tolerated by millions of people, Nissen says, and there's "enormous amounts of evidence that they reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke and death from cardiovascular causes." "We do our own analyses and we report the adverse events very carefully because every drug has benefits and risks." "My statisticians generated all the numbers in the manuscript," he says. The study was funded in part by the maker of the drug, Esperion Therapeutics, but Nissen explains his team works independently. But the benefits of taking the drug " far outweigh the small risks that we observed in the trial," study author Nissen told NPR. And the study also found a small increase in the number of people who developed gallstones (2% in the bempedoic group, 1% in the placebo group). Researchers say bempedoic acid was generally well-tolerated by people in the trial but there were some reported risks, including an increased incidence of gout, which was reported in 3% of the bemepedoic acid group, compared to 2% of the placebo group. And, unlike statin drugs, bempedoic acid is mostly metabolized in the liver, not in peripheral tissues, like muscle, so Alexander says it "has few, if any, muscle-related side effects." In the clinical trial, myalgias, which are muscle aches or pains, were reported more among people taking the placebo (6.8%), compared to those taking bempedoic acid (5.6%). Shots - Health News Daily 'breath training' can work as well as medicine to reduce high blood pressureīempedoic acid is a prodrug, which means it is activated by an enzyme after the medication enters the body. "This is working for me wonderfully and I'm not having any side effects," Kluczynski says. Her doctor prescribed Nexletol about two years ago, and she says she feels much better and hasn't "been achy."Īnd her cholesterol levels remain well controlled by the medicine. Some days she just wanted to go back to bed. "I felt like I had the flu" without the fever, she explains. Jennifer Kluczynski, 55, of Lambertville, Mich., had tried multiple statins but experienced lots of muscle aches and pains. "Bempedoic acid has now entered the list of evidence-based alternatives to statins," Alexander wrote in an editorial, published alongside the study. John Alexander, a cardiologist and professor at Duke University. With these findings, the benefits of the medication are now clearer, says Dr. There was also a 19% reduction in coronary revascularizations, which are procedures that restore blood flow to the heart, such as a bypass operation or stenting to open arteries. People who took daily doses of bempedoic acid for more than three years had about a 23% lower risk of having a heart attack, in that period, compared to those taking a placebo. "The big effect was on heart attacks," says study author Dr.
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