The internet is full of untruths, especially when it comes to comments and concerns about statin therapy.
There is a grass-roots effort by the non-medical community to impugn the CHOLESTEROL HYPOTHESIS, a foundational concept in cardiovascular medicine that hold that higher level of cholesterol (LDL/bad fraction) increases the risk of heart disease and lowering this number reduces the risk.
So….they comment on data that is critical of this concept or that suggests statin therapy is ineffective, or worse, causes dementia and other major health problems.
Nothing could be further from the truth, and the latest study in the NEJM on PRALUENT, a new type of injection medicine to lower cholesterol, has demonstrated definitively that lowering LDL cholesterol to levels previously unobtainable (25-50) and provide improved benefits in the heart and prevent death.
PRALUENT, and it’s sister medication REPATHA, are a new set of medications that focus on reducing cholesterol via the PCSK9 receptor pathway. This is markedly different than the mechanism of action from statins, but it achieves the fundamental same goal….reduction of LDL cholesterol.
In this latest study, we finally have ‘endpoint’ results that show longer life in patients who have had an acute MI and who are put on PRALUENT.
The exact patients who benefit most from the $600 per month injection therapy (every 2-4 week self-injections) will become clear with additional study, but one this is for certain…the lynchpin CHOLESTEROL HYPOTHESIS continues to hold and inform us on ways to increase longevity in heart disease patients.