Cholesterol Medicines in the News

If you are taking Vytorin or Zetia, there is no urgent need to change or stop these medicines. For a nice round-up on this news story, check this out.

In a nutshell, a study was sponsored by the manufacturer of these drugs involving a relatively small number of people with genetically extremely high cholesterols. It found:

• Neither of these medicines worked better than generic simvastatin (which is one of the medicines in Vytorin) in preventing cholesterol plaque build-up.
  
• There was no harm in taking Vytorin or Zetia, either.

The controversy is around why the drug manufacturer waited for over a year to announce these results, and speculation that they did so because the results did not favor these two brand-name drugs.

It is still important for your health to keep your cholesterol low. If you are on either of these medicines, they are not harming you, but you may be able to do just as well or better with less expensive generic medicines.