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LipitorCare News » November 06

Cholesterol's newest frontier
21 Nov. 2006

For the last two decades, a fear of bad cholesterol has gripped Americans. We've measured it, compared it, worried about it and doused it with statins, now among the best-selling drugs of all time.

Hovering on the sidelines has been another type of cholesterol - HDL, the good kind, also known as high-density lipoprotein. HDL cholesterol doesn't get the attention of its bad twin, LDL (low-density lipoprotein). Now it may be poised to receive the respect it deserves.
Recent research suggests that HDL may be the more important player in raising or lowering heart-disease risk.

As the 20th anniversary of the first cholesterol-lowering statin draws close, a new heart-disease deterrent is ready to leap onto the stage: the first drug to substantially raise good cholesterol.
If approved, it could usher in a new era in the battle against the No. 1 killer of Americans, responsible for 37 percent of adult deaths in the United States every year.
In fact, by giving medications in tandem to alter both HDL and LDL, doctors may have a potent one-two punch against heart disease.

"We've taken LDL management as far as we can go," says Dr. Prediman K. Shah, director of the division of cardiology and the Atherosclerosis Research Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. "Everyone is on the bandwagon that HDL is the next frontier for atherosclerosis management."

Interest in raising HDL cholesterol has been growing for several reasons. Chiefly, researchers have discovered that HDL prevents or reduces the buildup of plaque in artery walls and appears to be a significant cardiovascular risk factor independent of whether LDL is high or low.

Doctors have long known that LDL cannot be the whole story. Statins, for example, lower LDL cholesterol 30 percent to 40 percent and reduce heart attack and stroke rates by about the same amount, but most doctors can remember patients who dutifully lowered their LDL and still suffered heart attacks or strokes.

Doctors also know people who have too-high LDL but never succumb to cardiac trouble - perhaps, in some cases, because their high HDL is protecting them.

The interest in HDL cholesterol is to some extent market-driven. Many drug companies have blockbuster statin drugs with patents that are expiring, and they're searching for ways to reignite the market for treating cardiovascular disease.

Source:http://www.dallasnews.com