What are learning about these drugs? Do they have effects beyond simply lowering cholesterol?
We now have ample evidence that lowering cholesterol either with diet and lifestyle modification, or with drugs, can make a big difference We’ve seen something very interesting as we give these ‘statin’ medications. The beneficial effect seems to happen much earlier than we would have expected if this was just a matter of reducing cholesterol. Once the plaque is there in an atherosclerotic artery, even if you reduce the cholesterol, it takes a while to change that plaque. Some may never change, others may change only very slowly over months and years. But the effect of the statins was seen in a period only weeks or months. It seems reasonable to believe the statin is somehow involved in reducing the vulnerability of the plaque by reducing inflammation, or by other mechanisms.
