Alibata Health blog

Vytorin, is it safe?

January 22, 2008 on 3:36 am | In Blood Pressure, Health News, Medicines |

The cholesterol drug Vytorin has been known for his films, people who look strangely similar to the common life and banana cream pie tacos. But now that attention is Vytorin, which is far from being funny.

The medicine combines Zocor, a statin to lower cholesterol, Zetia, a drug that the boundaries of the absorption of cholesterol in the body, and the hope was that the combination would be effective only if the two substances. But last week Vytorin makers Merck and Schering-Plough, announced that in a small study had not done better than Zocor alone in the slowdown in the growth of arterial plaque, which can lead to heart attacks . There is nothing particularly alarming on the results (unless you are a shareholder, perhaps).

But the news on the way to a panic among patients, the drugs against cholesterol. A doctor said that with a full-time nurse, appeals and patients who are not convinced that their medicine. “Another patient with her doctor believed that the right to one study showed that the risk of myocardial infarction doubled medicine. (It was not, the study was not designed to measure heart attacks).

“I think this study is misinterpreted,” said Dr. Paul D. Thompson, director of cardiology, Hartford Hospital, the staff and Zetia (like most of the doctors quoted in this article), the manufacturers of cholesterol to drugs.

He noted that Vytorin users are more experienced declining Zocor cholesterol of the user. The disappointment was that the decline is not greater utility in the arterial health. “It is not,” said Dr Thompson. “There was no cardiac events over any more side effects. There was simply no change. ”

The Fallout, the study was not limited to Vytorin. It has meant that a whole series of new questions, the scientific community on the drugs against cholesterol. If the drop in LDL, the “bad” cholesterol, all that matters? Or a drug should also lead to an increase in HDL, the “good” cholesterol and combating inflammation?

In addition, the confusion, policy makers Vytorin fired their feet on the sharing of results, results in a press release instead of a medical journal and made a lot of people mad.