Guide to Heart Disease

Last year, heart experts managed to do something previously thought almost impossible: Using the maximum dosage of cholesterol-lowering medication Crestor a statin, they were able to shrink the fatty clogs blocking heart patients’ arteries by about 7 per cent over 2 years. The finding is significant because it’s always been believed that atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaque in the arteries, was irreversible, says author Steven Nissen, MD, head of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic and president of the American College of Cardiology. In the past, the best you could hope to do with drugs or a healthy lifestyle was slow or stop the gradual narrowing (although an angioplasty or stent can open up blocked arteries).
The new finding raises the possibility that you can actually reverse the plaque accumulation that starts as early as childhood. It also fuels the growing realization that dropping LDL, or bad, cholesterol to levels far below the 100 milligrams per deciliter that’s considered optimal is the best way to prevent heart attacks (the study’s participants reduced theirs from 130 to 61). Current guidelines advise that only people at very high risk of a heart attack aim for an LDL level below 70, but Nissen says it’s possible that someday even those at lower risk will simply shoot for the lowest cholesterol number that’s safely possible.

Popularity: 6%

Filed under: Heart Stroke