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Source: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

If you have successfully changed your eating habits for at least 6-12 months, and your LDL-cholesterol level is still too high, you may need to take medicine. Some people will need to take medicine from the start of their treatment because of a very high LDL level or the presence of heart disease.

If you doctor prescribes medicine, you also will need to:

• Follow your cholesterol-lowering diet.
• Lose weight if overweight.
• Be more physically active.
• Stop smoking.
• Taking all these steps together may lessen the amount of medicine you need, or make the medicine work better. And that reduces your risk of heart disease.

Medicines Your Doctor May Prescribe

Several types of medicine help lower blood cholesterol levels. These include:

• Major Drugs
  • Bile acid sequestrants (cholestyramine and colestipol)
  • Nicotinic acid
  • HMG CoA reduces inhibitors ar "statins" (e.g., lovastatin, pravastatin, and simvastatin)
• Other Drugs
  • Fibric acid derivatives (gemfibrozil)
  • Probucol

In addition, if you are a woman going through or past menopause, your doctor may talk with you about estrogens. Sometimes called Estrogen Replacement Therapy, this can lower blood cholesterol levels, and may make it unnecessary to take a cholesterol-lowering drug.

Drugs that lower blood cholesterol work in different ways. Some may work for you while others may not. Before the doctor prescribes any medicine, be sure to state what other medicines you are taking. And once a medicine is prescribed, take it exactly the way our doctor tells you so. If you have any side effects from a medicine, tell you doctor right away. The amount or type of drug can be changed to reduce or stop unwanted side effects. Whatever medicine you take, continue to follow the Step I or Step II diet and to be more physically active. This will help keep the dose of medicine as low as possible.

September 2001
Posted February 2002