Zocor, Simvastatin News

Even people who do not have high cholesterol and established heart disease could benefit from cholesterol-lowering statin drugs if they have other risk factors, a new study suggests.

July 1, 2009 -- Millions of people without established heart disease could benefit from cholesterol -lowering statin therapy even if they don't have high cholesterol , a new analysis suggests.

Statins are drugs used to lower cholesterol and, in recent years, have often been touted as a 21st century weapon against heart disease.

Q. What's a safe way to kill mosquitoes? We have a cabin on a pond, and the mosquitoes are ferocious.

That's the new finding from a study of more than 3,000 Group Health patients published online on June 16 in advance of the British Medical Journal's June 20 print issue.

In less than two years on Lipitor, I went from being able to climb the ancient temples at Angkor Wat, Cambodia, to being almost unable to walk to my mailbox.

Aggressive cholesterol-lowering therapy using high-dose atorvastatin was more effective at preventing heart failure among patients who had had a previous heart attack than usual treatment with simvastatin, according to a study published in the May 15 issue of the American Journal of Cardiology .

During the past two decades, widespread use of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs has been a major success story in the battle against heart disease, helping to reduce risk of death, heart attacks and other serious cardiovascular problems.

June 17, 2009 -- By some estimates, as many as 10% of people who take cholesterol -lowering statins experience troubling muscle pain , and many stop taking the drugs because of it.

Taking popular cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, such as Lipitor , does not lower the risk of pneumonia.

MONDAY, June 15, 2009 - A statin can be a lifesaver if you're at risk of heart disease , but some people who take the cholesterol-lowering drugs - up to 20%, by some estimates - have to stop because of muscle pain, the most common side effect.

Dear Dr. Donohue: My doctor wants me to take a statin drug even though my total cholesterol is normal, and my LDL cholesterol isn't very high.

New research published in The American Journal of Pathology has found that the cholesterol drug Zocor may block the body's ability to repair damaged nerve tissue.

THE nation's $10 billion drug subsidy scheme is so dysfunctional the sick are being slugged for medicines as chemists profit.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: My doctor wants me to take a statin drug even though my total cholesterol is normal and my LDL cholesterol isn't very high.

Merck & Co. and Schering-Plough Corp. were sued by a Pennsylvania fund for active and retired state employees over claims they misled consumers into paying too much for prescriptions of Zetia and Vytorin cholesterol pills.

DRUG NEWS POSTHERPETIC NEURALGIA Oxycodone eases acute shingles pain Although patients with herpes zoster can suffer severe acute pain for several weeks, little research has been done on effective oral treatments.

Wouldn't it be great if one pill could cure everything? While a pill to cure every illness known to man is still in the planning stages, a pill that could prevent a wide variety of chronic illnesses has been researched and is showing some promise.

Q. I know that statins are medications used to lower cholesterol, but I have also heard that they have harmful side effects.

Journal of Biochemistry Advance Access originally published online on March 2, 2009 Journal of Biochemistry 2009 145 :771-781; doi:10.1093/jb/mvp035 Section of Biochemistry, Department of Oral Function and Molecular Biology, Ohu University School of Dentistry, Koriyama 963-8611, Japan *To whom correspondence should be addressed.